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TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 



Life and Scenes 



IN 



THE NATIONAL CAPITAL, 

AS A WOMAN SEES THEM. 



By MARY CLEMMER AMES, 

Author of "Eirene, or a Woman's Right," " Memorials of Alice and Phoebe Cary," "A Woman's 
Letters from Washington," "Outlines of Men, Women" and Things," etc. 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH THIRTY FINE ENGRAVINGS, 



A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR ON STEEL. 







HARTFORD, CONN. : 

A. D. WORTHINGTON & CO. 

M. A. PARKER & CO., Chicago, Ills. F. DEWING & CO., San Francisco, Cal. 

1873. 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1873, by 

A. D. WORTHINGTON & CO., 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Case, Lockwood & Brain-ard, 

hun'tkks and binders, 

Cor. Pearl and Trumbull Sts., Hartford, Conn. 






I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness, in gathering the 
materials of this book, to Mr. A. R. Spofford, Librarian of Con- 
gress ; to Col. F. Howe ; to the Chiefs of the several Govern- 
ment Bureaus herein described ; to Mr. Colbert Lanston of the 
Bureau of Pensions ; to Mr. Phillips, of the Bureau of Patents ; 
and to Miss Austine Snead. 

M. C. A. 



TO 

Mrs. HAMILTON FISH, 

TO 

Mrs. ROSCOE CONKLING, 

OF 

NEW YORK, 
TWO LADIES, WHO, IN THE WORLD, 

ARE YET ABOVE IT, WHO USE IT AS NOT ABUSING IT, 

WHO EMBELLISH LIFE WITH THE PURE GRACES 
OF CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD, 

THESE 

SKETCHES OF OUR NATIONAL CAPITAL 

ARE SINCERELY 

Dedicated 

BY 

MART CLEMMER AMES. 








VIEW OF THE CAPITOL. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Engraved Expressly for this Work. 



PAGE. 

Fine Steel-Plate Portrait of the Author. Engraved by George 

E. Perine, [Frontispiece] 

View of the Capitol, 

Mkn of Mark in Washington, 31 

Hon. W. A. Richardson, Secretary of the Treasury, . . .31 

Gen. Albert J. Myer, "Old Probabilities," 31 

J. H. Baxter, M. D., Chief Medical Purveyor, . . . .31 
Charles Lyman, Chief of Dkad-Letter Office, . . . .31 

United States Treasury — Washington 104 

Inside the White House — Washington, 167 

The Great East Room, . 167 

The Green Room, 167 

Viflw of the "City of the Slain" — Arlington, .... 237 

The remains of over s.non soldiers, killed during the war, lie buried in this Cemetery — the name 
regiment, and date of death of each is painted on a wooden head-board. 

Making Money — The Room in the Treasury Building Where 

run Greenbacks are Printed, ....... 284 

Among the Greenbacks — TnE Cutting and Separating Room 

in the Treasury Building, 317 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VII 

PAGE. 

13. Burnt to Ashes — The End op Uncle Sam's Greenbacks, . . 326 

The above is a graphic sketch of the destruction of the worn and defaced currency constantly 
being redeemed by the Government, which is here burned every day at 12 o'clock. On one 
occasion considerably more than one hundred million dollars' worth of bonds and greenbacks 
were destroyed in this furnace, and the burning of from fifty to seventy-five millions at a time 
is a matter of ordinary occurrence. 

14. The New Marble Cash-Room, United States Treasury, . . 339 

The most costly and magnificent room of its kind in the world. 

15. Counting Worn and Defaced Greenbacks and Detecting Coun- 

terfeits, ............ 369 

This room is in the Redemption Bureau, Treasury-Building. Over One Hundred Thousand 
Dollars' worth of Fractional Currency alone is here daily received for redemption ; out of 
which about Three Hundred and Fifty Dollars' worth of counterfeit money is detected, 
6tamped, and returned. 

16. Dead-Letter Office, U. S. General Post-Office — "Washington, 388 

17. The Model-Room — Patent-Office, Washington, .... 436 

This room contains the fruits of the inventive genius of the whole nation. More than 160,000 
models are here deposited. 

18. Blood-Stained Confederate Battle-Flags, Captured During 

the War, ............ 463 

Sketched by permission of the Government from the large collection in possession of the War De- 
partment, at Washington. 

1. Black Flag. 4. State and Regiment unknown. [Captured at the Battle of 

2. Alabama Flag. Gettysburg, by the OOlh Regiment of New \ oik Volunteers.] 
8. Palmetto Flag. 5. State Colors of North Carolina. 

19. The Main Hall of the Armt Medical Museum — Washington, 475 

This Museum occupies the scene of the assassination of President Lincoln, in Ford's Theatre, 
which after that elate became the property of the Government. It contains a collection of up- 
wards of twenty thousand rare, curious and interesting objects, surpassi-p r; any similar collec- 
tion in the world. It is visited annually by upwards of twenty-five thousand persons. 

20. Curiosities from the Army Medical Museum, .... 480 

21. A Withered Arm, 4S0 

Skin, flesh and bones complete. Amputated by a cannon-shot on the battle-field of Gettysburg. 
The shot carried the severed limb up into the high branches of a tree, where it was subse- 
quently found, completely air and sun-dried. 

22. Skull of a Man, 480 

Who received an arrow-wound in the head, three gun-shot flesh-wounds, one in the arm, another 
in the breast, and a third in the leg. Seven days afterwards he was admitted to the hospital 
at Fort Concha, Texas, ( where he subsequently died,) after having travelled above 100 miles on 
the barren plains, mostly on foot. 

23. Apache Indian Arrow-Head, 480 

Of soft hoop-iron. These arrows will perforate a bone without causing the slightest fracture, 
where a rifle or musket-ball will flatten ; and will make a cut as clean as the finest surgical 
instrument. 

24. Skull of Little Bear's Squaw, .... ... 480 

Perforated by seven bullet-holes. Killed in Wyoming Territory, 

25. All that Remains Above Ground of John Wilkes Booth, . . 480 

Being part of the Vertebra penetrated [A] by the bullet of Boston Corbett. Strange freak of fate 
that the remains of Booth should find a resting-place under the same roof, and but a few feet 
from the spot where the fatal shot was fired. 

26. Skull of a Soldier, 480 

Wounded at Spottsylvania : showing the splitting of a rifle-ball — one portion being buried deep 
in the brain, and the other between the scalp and the skull. He Uvea twenty-three days. 

27. A Sioux Pappoose, 480 

Or Indian infant, found in a tree near Fort Laramie, where it had been buried (?) according to 
the custom of this tribe. 

28. Skull of an Indian, 480 

Showing nine distinct sabre wounds. 

29. "Old Probabilities'" Instrument Room, ...... 493 

Storm and Weather Signal Service Bureau — Washington. 

SO. The Tomb of "The Unknown" — Arlington, 586 

Erected by the Government to the memory of Unknown Soldiers killed during the War. It 

hears the following inscription : 
"Beneath this stone repose the bones of Two Thousand One Hundred and Eleven unknown 
soldiers, gathered after the war, from the fields of Bull Run and the route to the Rappa- 
hannock. Their remains could not be identified ; but their namesand deaths are 
recorded in the archives of their country, and its grateful citizens honor 
them as of their noble army of Martyrs. May they rest 
in peace I September, A. D. 1S00." 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. PA0E . 

The Young Surveyor's Dream — Humboldt's View of Washington— A Vision of the Fu- 
ture Capital — The United States Government on Wheels— Ambitious Otters— The Rival 
Rivers — Potomac Wins — Battles in Congress — Patriotic Otters of Territory — Temporary 
Lodgings for Eleven Years— Old- Fashioned Simplicity — He Could n't Attord Furniture 
— A Great Man's Modesty — Conflicting Claims— Smith Backs Baltimore — A Convincing 
Fact — The Dreadful Quakers — A Condescending Party — A Slight Amendment — An Old 
Bill Brought to Light Again — The Indian Place with the Long Name — Secession 
Threatened — The Future Strangely Foreshadowed — A Dinner of Some Consequence — 
How it was Done — Really a Stranger — A Nice Proposal — Sweetening ihe Pill— A -' Re- 
vulsion of Stomach " — Fixed on the Banks of the Potomac, 21 

CHAPTER II. 

CROSS PURPOSES AND QUEER SPECULATIONS. 

Born of Much Bother — Long Debates and Pamphlets — Undefined Apprehensions — De- 
bates on the Coming City — Old World Examples— Sir James Expresses an Opinion — A 
Dream of the Distant West — An Old-time Want — A Curious Statement of Fact — 
"Going West" — Where is the Center of Population — An Important Proclamation — 
Original Land Owners — Well-worn Patents— Getting on with Pugnacious Planters — 
Obstinate David Burns— A " Widow's Mite " of Some Magnitude — How the Scotch-, 
man was Subjugated — " If You Hadn 't Married the WidowCustis "—A Rather " For 
cible Argument"— His Excellency " Chooses "—The First Record in Washington— Old 
Homes and Haunts— Purchase of Land— Extent of the City, 31 

CHAPTER III. 

THE WORK BEGUN IN EARNEST. 

Washington's Faith in the Future— Mr. Sparks is "Inclined to Think "—A Slight Miscal- 
culation — Theoretical Spartans — Clinging to Old World Glories— Jefferson Acts the 
Critic — He Communicates Some Ideas — Models of Antiquity — Babylon Revived — Diffi- 
culty in Satisfying a Frenchman's Soul— The Man Who Planned the Capital— Who 
Was L'Enfant ? — His Troubles — His Dismissal — His Personal Appearance, Old Age, 
Death, and Burial Place— His Successor— The French Genius " Proceeded "—The 
New City of Washington— A Magnificent Plan— All About the City— The Major not 
Appreciated— "Getting on Badly "—L'Enfant Worries Washington— A Record Which 
Can Nover Perish— An Overpaid Quaker— Jefferson Expresses His Sentiments— A 
Sable Franklin— The Negro Engineer, Benjamin Bancker— A Chance for a Monument, 3S 

CHAPTER IV. 

OLD WASHINGTON. 

How the City Was Built—" A Matter of Moonshine "—Calls for Paper— Besieging Con- 
gressmen— How They Raised the Money— The Government Requires Sponsors— Birth 
of the Nation's Capital— Seventy Years Ago in Washington— Graphic Picture of Karly 
Times— A Much-Marrying City— Unwashed Virginian Belles— Stuck in the Mud— Ex- 
traordinary Religious Services, 51 

CHAPTER V. 

TnE NOBLEST WARD OF CONGRESS. 

A Ward of Congress— Expectations Disappointed— Funds Low and People Few— Slow 
Progress of the City— First Idea of a National University— A Question of Importance 



CONTENTS. IX 

PAGE. 

Discussed— Generous Proposition of George Washington— Faith Under Difficulties- 
Transplanting an Entire College— An Old Proposition in a New Shape— What Wash- 
ington " Society " Lacks— The Lombardy Poplars Refuse to Grow — Perils of the Way 
— A Long Plain of Mud — "The Forlornest City in Christendom" — Egyptian Dreari- 
ness — Incomplete and Desolate State of Affairs — The End of an Expensive Canal — 
The Water of Tiber Creek — American "Boys" on the March — Divided Allegiance of 
Old— The Stirring of a Nation"s Heart— Keady to March to Her Defense— A Personal 
Interest— Patriotism Aroused— The First-Born City of the Republic — Truly the Capi- 
tal of the Nation, G2 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE WASHINGTON OF THE PRESENT DAY. 
Hopes Realized— A Truly National City— Washington in 1873— Major L'Enfant's Dream 
—Old and New—" Modern Improvements "—A City of Palaces— The Capital in all its 
Glory — Traces of the War — Flowers on the Ramparts— Under the Oaks of Arlington — 
Ten Years Ago— The Birth of a Century— The Reign of Peace— The Capital of the 
Future, 72 

CHAPTER VII. 

WHAT MADE NEW WASHINGTON. 
Municipal Changes— Necessity of Reform— Committee of One Hundred Constituted— Mr. 
M. G. Emery Appointed Mayor— The " Organic Act " Passed— Contest for the Govern- 
orship of Columbia District— Mr. Henry D. Cooke Appointed— Board of Public Works 
Constituted— Great Improvements Made— Opposition— The Board and Its Work- 
Sketch of Alexander R. Sheplierd— His Efforts During the War— Patriotic Example, . 76 

CHAPTER VIII. 

BUILDING THE CAPITOL. 

George Washington's Anxiety About it— His View of it Politically— Various Plans for the 
Building— Jefferson Writes to the Commissioners— His Letter to Mr. Carroll— " Poor 
Halletf'and His Plan— Wanton Destruction by the British, A. D. 1814— Foundation 
of the Main Building Laid — The Site Chosen by Washington Himself— Imposing Cere- 
monies at the Foundation— Dedicatory Inscription on the Silver Plate — Interesting 
Festivities— The Birth of a Nation's Capitol — Extension of the Building — Daniel Web- 
ster's Inscription — His Eloquent and Patriotic Speech — Mistaken Calculations — First 
Session of Representatives Sitting in "the Oven " — Old Capitol Prison — Immense Out- 
lay upon the Wings and Dome— Compared with St. Peter's and St. Paul's— The God- 
dess of Liberty — The Congressional Library— Proposed Alterations — What Ought to be 
Done, 83 

CHAPTER IX. 

INSIDE THE CAPITOL. 

A Visit to the Capitol — The Lower Hall— Its Cool Tranquillity — Artistic Treasures — The 
President's and Vice-President's Rooms — The Marble Room— The Senate Chamber — 
" Men I Have Known " — Hamlin — Foote— Foster — Wade— Colfax — Wilson — The Ro- 
tunda — Great Historical Paintings — The Old Hall of Representatives— The New Hall — 
The Speaker's Room— Native Art — " The Star of Empire " — A National Picture, . . 93 

CHAPTER X. 

OUTSIDE THE CAPITOL. 

The Famous Bronze Doors— The Capitol Grounds— Statue of Washington Criticised— Pe- 
culiar Position for the " Father of his Country " — Horace Greenough's Defence of the 
Statue— Picturesque Scenery Around the Capitol— The City and Suburbs— The Public 
Reservation — The Smithsonian Institution — The Potomac and the Hights of Arlington, 104 

CHAPTER XL 

ART TREASURES OF THE CAPITOL. 

Arrival of a Solitary Lady—" The Pantheon of America "— Tl Penserosa— Milton's Ideal 
— Dirty Condition of the House of Representatives— The Goddess of Melancholy— Vin- 
nie Ream's Statue of Lincoln— Its Grand Defects— Necessary Qualifications for a 
Sculptor— The Bust of Lincoln by Mrs. Ames — General Greene and Roger Williams — 
Barbarous Garments of Modern Times— Statues of Jonathan Trumbull and Roger 
Sherman— Bust of Kosciusco— Pulling his Nose— Alexander Hamilton— Fate of Sena- 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

tor Burr— Statue of Baker— His Last Speech Prophetic— The Glory of a Patriotic Ex- 
ample—The Lesson which Posterity Learns— Horatio Stone, the Sculptor— Washing- 
ton's Statue at Richmond— Neglected Condition of the Capitol Statuary — Curious 
Clock— Grotesque Plaster Image of Liberty— Webster— Clay— Adams— The Pantheon 
at Rome— The French Pantheon— Bar-Maid Goddess— Dirty Customs of M. C.'s— Fu- 
ture Glory of America, 109 

CHAPTER XII. 

WOMEN WITH CLAIMS. 

The Senate Reception-Room— The People who Haunt it— Republican " Ladies in Wait- 
ing" — " Women with Claims " — Their Heroic Persistency — A Widow and Children in 
Distress— Claim Agents— The Committee of Claims — A Kind-Hearted Senator's Trou- 
bles—Buttonholing a Senator— A Lady of Energy— Resolved to Win— An " Office 
Brokeress"— A Dragon of a Woman —A Lady who is Feared if not Respected — Her 
Unfortunate Victims— Carrying "Her Measure"— The Beautiful Petitioner— The 
Cloudy Side of Her Character— Her Subtle Dealings— Her Successes— How Govern- 
ment Prizes are Won, 120 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY. 

Inside the Library— The Librarian— Sketch of Mr. Spoflbrd— How Congressional Speeches 
are Manufactured—" Spoiford " in Congress — The Library Building — Diagram — Di- 
mensions of the Hall — The Iron Book Cases— The Law Library— Five Miles of Book 
Shelves— Silent Study — "Abstracting" Books — Amusing Adventure — A Senator in a 
Quandary — Making Love Under Difficulties — Library Regulations — Privileged Persons 
— Novelsand their Readers — Books of Reference— Cataloguing the Library — The New 
Classification— Compared with the British Museum— Curious Old Newspapers— Files of 
Domestic and Foreign Papers— One Hundred Defunct Journals — Destruction of the 
Library by English Troops — An Incident of the War of 1814— Putting it to the Vote — 
"Carried Unanimously" — Wanton Destruction — Washington in Flames — A Fearful 
Ternpest — The Second' Conflagration — 35,000 Volumes Destroyed — Treasures of Art 
Consumed — Congressional Grants — The New Library — Extensive Additions — The Next 
Appropriation — The Grand Library of the Nation, 127 

CHAPTER XIV. 

A VISIT TO THE NEW LAW LIBRARY. 

How a Library was Offered to Congress— Mr. King's Proposal— An Eye to Theology— The 
Smithsonian Library Transferred — The Good Deeds of Peter Force — National Docu- 
ments — " American Archives " — Congress Makes a Wise Purchase — Eliot's Indian 
Bible— Literary Treasures— The Lawyers Want a Library for Themselves — Their " Lit- 
tle Bill" Fails to Pass— They are Finally Successful — The Finest Law Library in the 
World— First Edition of Blackstone— heport of the Trial of Cagliostro, Rohan and La 
Motte — Marie Antoinette's Diamond Neck lace— A Long Life-Service— The Law Library 
Building — An Architect Buried Beneath his own Design— " Underdone Pie-crust" — 
"Justice " Among the Books— Reminiscences of Daniel Webster and the Girard Will, 138 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE HEAVEN OF LEGAL AMBITION — THE SUPREME COURT ROOM. 

Memories of Clay, Webster and Calhoun— Legal Giants of the Past— Stately Serenity of 
the Modern Court— " Wise Judgment and Wine Dinners"— The Supreme Court in 
Session— Soporific Influences— A Glimpse of the Veritable "Bench "-The Ladies' 
Gallery— The Chief Justices of the Past-Tanev Left Out in the Cold— His Apotheosis 
—Chief-Justice Chase— Black-Robed Dignitaries— An Undignified Procession— The 
"Crier" in Court— Antique Proclamation— The Consultation-Room— Everv Man in 
his Proper Place— Gowns of Oflice— Reminiscence of Judge McClean— " Uncle Henry 
and his Charge "—Fifty Years in Office, 144 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE "MECCA" OP THE AMERICAN. 
The Caaba of Liberty— The Centre of a Nation's Hopes— Stirring Reminiscences of the 
Capitol— History Written in Stone— Patriotic Expression of Charles Sumner— Ruskiu's 
Views of Ornament— Building " for all Time "—"This our Fathers Did for Us"— The 
Parthenon and the Capitol Compared— The Interest of Humanity— A Secret Charm 
for a Thoughtful Mind— Ah Idea of Equality— The Destiny of the Stars and Stripes— 
A Mother's Ambition— Recollections of the War— The Dying Soldier—" The Republic 
will not Perish," 148 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE CAPITOL — MORNING SIGHTS AND SCENES. PAOE . 

The Capitol in Spring — A Magic Change— " More Beautiful than Ancient Rome" — Arri- 
val of Visitors— A New Race—" Billing and Cooing "—Lovers at the Capitol— A Dream 
of Perpetual Spring— Spending the Honeymoon in Washington— Charmingly " Ver- 
nal " People — New Edition of David Copperfield and Dora — " Very Young " — Divided 
Affections : The New Bride— Jonathan and Jane — Memories of a Wedding Dress — An 
Interview with a Bride — " Two Happy Idiots " — A Walk in the City — Utilitarian Proj- 
ects—President Grant— The Foreign Ambassadors — •' Beau " Hickman — An Erratic 
Genius — Walt Whitman, the Poet — A " Loafer " of Renown — Poets at Home — Piatt — 
Burroughs— Harriet Prescott Spofford — Sumner and Chase— Foreign Attach&s "on the 
Flirt " — Tiresome Men — Lafayette Square in the Morning — How to Love a Tree — " He 
Never Saw Washington," 153 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

FAIR WASHINGTON — A RAMBLE IN EARLY SPRING. 

Washington Weather —Sky Scenery— Professor Tyndall Expresses an Opinion — A Picture 
of Beauty — "A City of Enchantment " — - 'My Own Washington" — Prejudiced Views 
— Birds of Rock Creek — The Parsonage — A Scene of Tranquil Beauty — A Washington 
May — Charms of the Season — Mowers at Work — The Public Parks — Frolics of the Lit- 
tle Ones— Strawberry Festivals— " Flower Gathering," 162 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE WHITE HOUSE, i. e., THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 

Haunted Houses — Shadows of the Past — Touching Memories — The Little Angels Born 
There — Building of the Presidential Mansion — A State of Perpetual Dampness — Dingy 
Aspect of a Monarch's Palace — Outside the White House — A Peep Inside the Mansion — 
The Emperor of Japan Supersedes the Punch-Bowl — The Unfinished *' Banqueting- 
Hall " — Glories of a Levee — Magnificent Hospitalities— A Comfortable Dining-Room — 
Interesting Labors of Martha Patterson — A Lady of Taste — An American " Baronial 
Hall "—The Furniture of Another Generation — A Valuable Steward — A Professor of 
Gastronomy — Paying thd Professor and Providing the Dinner — Feeding the Celebrities 
— Mrs. Lincoln's Unpopular Innovations — Fifteen Hundred Dollars for a Dinner — How 
Prince Arthur, of England, was Entertained — Domestic Economy — " Not Enough Sil- 
ver" — A Tasty Soup— The Recipe for an Aristocratic Stew— Having a "Nice Time" — 
Mrs. Franklin Pierce Horrified — " Going a Fishing on Sunday " — Hatred of Flummery 
— An Admirer of Pork and Beans and Slap- jacks— A Presidential Reception— Ready 
for the Festival—" Such a Bore ! " — Splendor, Weariness and Indigestion — Paying the 
Penalty— In the Conservatory— Domestic Arrangements— The Library — Statue of Jef- 
ferson — Pleasant Views— Reminiscence of Abraham Lincoln, 167 

" All houses wherein men have lived and died 
Ave haunted houses. Through the open doors 
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide. 
With feet that make no sound upon the floors. 

" There are more guests at table than the hosts 
Invited ; the illuminated hall 
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts, 
As silent as the pictures on the wall." 

CHAPTER XX. 

LADIES OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 

A Morning Dream— Wives and Daughters of the Presidents — Memories of Martha Wash- 
ington — An Average Matron of the 18th Century — Educational Disadvantages — Com- 
parisons—A Well-Regulated Lady — A Useful Wife— Warm Words of Abigail Adams — 
Advantages of Having a Distinguished Husband — A Modern Lucretia — Washington's 
Inauguration Suit— An Awkward Position for a Lady — A Primitive Levke— Festivities 
in Franklin Square !— Decorous Ideas of the Father of his Country — The Government 
on its Travels — Transporting the Household Gods— Keeping Early Hours— Primitive 
Customs — A Dignified Conge — Much-Shaken Hands — Remembrances of a Past Age — 
An English Manufacturer " Struck with Awe" — Very Questionable Humility — The 
Room in which Washington Died — Days of Widowhood — A Wife's Congratulations — 
A True Woman — Domestic Affairs at the White House — An Unfinished Mansion— In- 
teresting Details— A Woman's Influence— A Monument Wanted — Devotion of a Hus- 
band — The "Single Life" — Theodocia Burr and Katherine Chase — "Levees" Sum- 
marily Abolished — Disappointed Belles— An Extraordinary Reception— Blacked His 
Own Boots — A Dignified Foreigner Shocked — Governmental Enquiries— Womanly In- 
disnation— The Poet Pardoned—" The Sweetest Creature in Virginia "—A Daughters 
Affection, - 177 



192 



X ii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. vtl 

A Social Queen—" The Most Popular Person in the United States "— " Dolly Madison's " 
Reign— The Slow Days of Old— A Young Lady Rides Five Hundred Miles on Horse- 
back—Travelling Under Difficulties— Political Pugnacity— A Peaceful Policy— Formal- 
ity versus Hospitality— Big Dishes Laughed at— A Foreign Minister Criticises— Advan- 
tages of a Good Memory— Funny Adventure of a Rustic Youth— A Strange Pocketful 
—Putting Him at His Ease— Doleful Visage of a New President— Getting Rid of a Bur- 
den—A Brave Lady— She Writes to her Sister — Waiting in Suspense — Taking Care of 
Cabinet Papers—" Disaffection Stalks Around Us "— " Col C." Very Prudently " Ske- 
daddles "—One Hundred "Braves" Skedaddle With Him— "French John " Makes a 
Proposition — He Desires to "Blow Up the British" — John " Doesn 't See It "—Watch- 
ing and Waiting— Flight— Unscrewing the Picture — After the War — Brilliant Recep- 
tions—Mrs. Madison's Snuff-Box— Clay Takes a Pinch— " This is my Polisher!"— 
*' Tempora Mutantur "—Two Plain Old Ladies from the West—" If I Jest Kissed 
y u"— They Depart in Peace— Days of Trouble and Care— Manuscripts Purchased by 
Congress— The "Franking Privilege" Conferred Upon Mrs. Madison— Honored by 
Congress— Last Days of a Good Woman— Mrs. Monroe— A Severe and Aristocratic 
Woman— "La Belle Americaine "—Madame Lafayette in Prison— Fennimore Cooper 
Expresses an Opinion— Grotesque Anomalies at a Reception— The Crown and the 
Eagle, 

CHAPTER XXIL 

A CHAPTER OP GOSSIP. 

Quaint Habiliments— Portrait of a President's Wife— A Travelling Lady— Life in Russia^ 
—A Model American Minister— A Long and Lonely Journey— When Napoleon Re- 
turned from Elba— The Court of St. James— "Mrs. Adams' Ball "—Mr. John Ogg's 
Little •' Poem " — Verses which Our Fathers Endured — Peculiar Waists— Costume of 
an Ancient Belle— Fearful and Wonderful Attire of a Beau—" A Suit of Steel "— 
"Smiling for the Presidency" — Attending Two Balls the Same Evening— An Ascend- 
ant Star— A Man Who Hid his Feelings— The Candidate at a Cattle Show — " t>he 
Often Combed Your Head "— " I Suppose She Combs Yours Now "—Giving " Tone " to 
the Whole Country — A Circle of " Hare" Women— A " Perpetual Honor to Woman- 
hood "—Charles's Opinion of His Mother — How a Lady "Amused" Her Declining 
Days— Lafayette's Visit to Washington— His Farewell to America—" A Species of Ir- 
regular Diary "— " For the Benefit of My Grandfather " — Mrs. Andrew Jackson — A 
Woman's Influence— Politics and Piety Disagree— Why the General Didn't Join the 
Church— A Head "Full of Politics "—Swearing Some— The President Becomes a 
Good Boy— Domestic Tendencies— His Greatest Loss— Sad News from the Hermitage, 204 

CHAPTER XXIII.' 

SCENES AT THE WHITE HOUSE — MEN AND WOMEN OF NOTE. 

Widows "at par "—Four Sonless Presidents— Supported by Flattery — A Delicate Constitu- 
tion—Living to a Respectable Age— Teaching Her Grandson How to Fight— Inheriting 
Religion — "Another Sensitive, Saintly Soul " — A Pathetic Reminiscence — A Perfect 
Gentlewoman— A Stately Black-eyed Matron— A Lady of the Old School— Obeying St. 
Paul— A Woman Who " Kept Silence " — " Sarah Knows Where It Is "—Commanding 
" Superlative Respect " — An English Lady " Impressed " — Three Queens in the Back- 
ground—A Very Handsome Woman — Retiring from Active Life — A Lady's Heroism — 
" My Home, the Battle-field "—A Man Who Kept to His Post— A Life in the Savage Wil- 
derness—A Life's Devotion— The Colonel's Brave Wife— The Conquering Hero from 
Mexico— Objecting to the Presidency— "Betty Elisfs"— TheReigningLady— An Overpow- 
ering Reception—" A Bright and Beaming' Creature, Dressed Simply in White "—An 
Inclination for Retirement— The Penalty of Greatness— Death in the White House— A 
Wife's Prayers— A New Jieqime— The Clothier's Apprentice and the School Teacher— 
The Future President Builds His Own House — Becomes a Lawyer — Chosen Representa- 
tive — Domestic Happiness— Twenty-seven Years of Married Life — " A Matron of Com- 
manding Person " — A Scarcity of Books— Homo " Comforts " at the White House— The 
Memory of a Loving Wife— A Well-Balanced Young Lady, 218 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

TnE WHITE HOUSE DURING THE WAR. 

Under a Cloud— " A Woman Among a Thousand "—Revival of By-gone Days— An- 
other Lady of the White House— A " Golden Blonde"— Instinct Alike with Power and 
Graco — A Fun-Loving Romp — Harriet with her Wheelborrow of Wood — A Deed of 
Kindness— Tho Wheel Turns Round — An Impression Made on Queen Victoria — In Paris 
and on the Continent — An Axueriean Lady at Oxford — Gay Doings at tho Capital — Rival 



CONTENTS. Xlil 

PAGE. 

Claims for a Lady's Fand— Reigning at the White House— Doing Double Duty— "Visit 
of the Prince of Wales— Marriage of Harriet Lane— As Wife and Mother— Mrs. Abra- 
ham Lincoln — Standing Alone —A Time of Trouble and Perplexity — Conciliatory 
Counsels .Needful— Rumors of War— The Life of the Nation Threatened — Whispers of 
Treason— Awaiting the Event — Peculiar Position of Mary Lincoln — A Life-long Ambi- 
tion Fulfilled— The Nation Called to Arms— Contagious Enthusiasm— What the Presi- 
dent's Wife Did— Nothing to do but " Shop "—Sensational Stories Afloat— Stirring 
Times at the Capital— What Came from the River— The Dying and the Dead— Churches 
aud Houses Turned into Hospitals— Arrival of Troops — " Mrs. Lincoln Shopped " — The 
Lonely Man at the White House— Letters of Rebuke— An Example of Selfishness — 
Petty Economies — The Back Door of the White House— An Injured Individual— Death 
of Willie Lincoln— Injustice which Mrs. Lincoln Suffered— The Rabble in the White 
Hoajse — "Valuables Carried Away — Big Boxes and Much Goods— Going West— Mrs. 
Lincoln Disconsolate — False and Cruel Accusations— Considerable Personal Property — 
Missing Treasures— Mrs. Lincoln as a Woman— Tears and Mimicry— Faults of a Presi- 
dent's Wife, . ^ . 231 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE WHITE HOUSE NOW— ITS PRESENT OCCUPANTS. 

After the War— The Home of President Johnson— Shut Up in the Mountains— Two Tears 
of Exile— A Contrast— Suffering for their Country— Secretly Burying the Dead — A Wife 
of Seventeen Years — Midnight Studies— Broken Down— A Party of Grandchildren — 
" My Dears, I am an Invalid "— " Gods Best Gift to Man "—The Woman Who Taught 
the President— A " Lady of Benign Countenance "—Doing the Honors at the White 
House—" We are Plain People " — The East Room Filled with Vermin— Traces of the 
Soldiers— A State of Dirt and Ruin— Mrs. Patterson's Calico Dress— In the Dairy— A 
Nineteenth Century Wonder— How the Old Carpets were Patched— The Greenbacks are 
Forthcoming— How $30,000 were Spent— Buying the Furniture— Working in Hot 
Weather— " Wrestling with Rag* and Ruins "—" Renovated from Top to Bottom " — 
What the Ladies Wore, and What They Didn't— The Memory of Elegant Attire— Im- 
pressing the Public Mind— How Un perverted Minds are Affected— " Bare necked 
Dowagers "— " A Large Crowd of Bare Busts"— Elderly Ladies with Raven Locks — 
The Opinion of a Woman of Fa.shion— Very Good Dinners— Obsequious to the Will of 
" the People " — Doors Open to the Mob— Sketching a Banquet— Sentimental Reflections 
on the Dining Room— The Portraits of the Presidents— The Impeachment Trial— Peace 
in the Family— The Grant Dynasty— Looking Home-like— Mrs. Grant at Home— What 
Might Be Done, if— What Won't Work a Reformation— A Pity for Miss Nellie Grant- 
How She Suddenly " Came Out "— " A Full-Fledged Woman of Fashion "—A " Shoal 
of Pretty Girls "—How a Certain Young Lady was Spoilt— Brushing Away " the Dew 
of Innocence "—Need of a Centripetal Soul— Society in the Season— Rare Women with 
no Tastes— The Wives of the Presidents Summed Up, . 243 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

MRS. GRANT'S RECEPTION — GLIMPSES OF LIFE. 

Mrs. Grant at Home— A Reception— Feeling Good-Natured— Looking After One's 
Friends— Ready to Forgive— Mr. Grant's " Likeable Side "—The East Room on a Re- 
ception Day—" The Nation's Parlor "—Rags and Tatters Departed— The Work of Relic- 
Hunters— Internal Arrangements— Eight Presidents, All in a Row—" As Large as Life " 
—Shadows of the Departed— A President from the Sultan of Turkey— A List of Finery 
—A Scene Not Easily Forgotten— How They Wept for Their Martyr— Tales which a 
Room Might Tell— David, Jonathan and Sir Philip Sidney Superseded— Underneath 
the Gold and Lace— " Into the Ear of a Foolish Girl "—The Census of Spittoons— "A 
Horror in Our Land"— An Under-bred People—" We Talk Too Loud "—Preliminaries 
to Perfection— "More Than Shakspeare's Women "—The Shadow of Human Nature- 
Two "Quizzing" Ladies— Nothing Sacred io Thenn-An Illogical Dame— Her "Pre- 
carious Organ "—A " Vice that Thrives Amid Christian Graces" — How some Pious 
People " Avenge their Defrauded Souls"— A Lady of Many Colors—" A New Woman" 
— A Vegetable Comparison— What "a Good Little Girl" was Allowed To Do— The 
Lady of the Manor— Women Who are Not Ashamed of Womanhood— Observed and Ad- 
mired of All— Another "Reigning Belle "—Sketch of a Perfect Woman— After the 
Lapse of Generations— The " German "— " You Had Better Be Shut Up "—The " With- 
ering " of Many American Women — Full Dress and No Dres — What the Princess Ghika 
Thinks— A Young Girl's Dress— " That Dreadful Woman"— "My Wife's Dress— The 
Resolution of a Young Man, 256 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

INAUGURATION DAY AT WASHINGTON. 

My Own Private Opinion — Sublime Humanity in the Lump — The Climate Disagrees— The 
Little "Sons of War" Feeling Bad— " Think of the Babies "—Brutal Mothers— The 
" Boys in Blue " — " Broke their Backs and Skinned their Noses " — Our Heroes — Later 



XIV CONTEXTS. 

PAGE. 

Festivities— " Devoted to Art"— Scene in " the Avenue "—A Lively Time— The Mighty 
Drum-Major — West Point Warriors Criticised — Faultlessly Ridiculous — Pitilessly 
Dressed — "Taken for a Nigger " — Magnificent Display — The Oldest Regiment in the 
States— The President — The Senators — Invitation of the Coldstream Guards — The 
Strangers — Generals Sherman and Sheridan — Admiral Porter — Sketches of Well-known 
Men — The Diplomatic Corps — Blacque Bey — Full Turkish Costume— Sir Edward Thorn- 
ton — The Japanese Minister — Senator Sumner Appears — The Supreme Court — Senator 
Wilson — Cragin, Logan, and Bayard — Vine-President Colfax— Enter, the President — 
Congress Alive Again — The Valedictory — Taking the Oaths — "The Little Gentleman 
in the Big Chair "—His Little Speech— His Wife and Family Behind— The New Presi- 
dent — Memories of Another Scene— Grand Jubilation — The Procession — The Curtain 
Falla, 269 

CHAPTER XXVIIL 

THE NEW PRESIDENT — THE INAUGURATION BALL. 

How Sixty Thousand Dollars were Spent— Something Wrong : " 'Twas ever Thus"— "Re- 
collection of another Festival— How " the Dust" was Raised — A Fine Opportunity for 
a Few Naughty Words — Lost Jewels — The Colored Folks in a Fix — Overpowered by 
Numbers — Six Thousand People Clamoring for their Clothes! — " Promiscuous" Prop- 
erty — A Magnificent ''Grab" — Weeping on Window-ledges— Left Desolate — Walking 
under Difficulties— The Exploit of Two Old Gentlemen —Horace Greeley Loses his 
Old White Hat — He says Naughty Words of Washington— Seeking the Lost — Still 
Cherished by Memory— Some People Remind General Chipman— " Regardless of Ex- 
pense "—A Bail-Room Built of Wooden Laths and Muslin— A Little Too Cold— Gay 
Decorations— How " Delicate" Women can Endure the Cold— Modesty in Scanty Gar- 
ments—The President Frozen— The " Cherubs, Perched up Aloft," Refuse to Sing— On 
the Presidential Platform — Ladies of Distinction — Half-frozen Beauties— " They did 
not Make a Pretty Picture "—Why and Wherefore?— A Protest against "Shams" — 
A Stolid Tanner who -Fought his Way, 2T8 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE UNITED STATES TREASURY — ITS HISTORY. 

The Responsibilities and Duties of the Secretary of the Treasury — " The Most Remarkable 
Man of his Time " — Three Extraordinary Men — Hamilton Makes an Honest Proposal — 
How to Pay the National Debt — The New Secretary at Work — Laying the Foundation 
of Financial Operations— The Mint at Philadelphia— A Little Personal Abuse— The 
Secretary Borrows Twenty Dollars — Modern Greediness— The Genius Becomes a Law- 
yer— Burning of Records— Hunting for Blunders and Frauds — The Treasury Building 
Treasury Notes go off Nicely — Mr. Crawford Under a Cloud — He Comes out Glo- 
riously — A Little Variety — A Vision of Much Money — Fidgety Times — Lighting the 
Mariner on his Way — Old Debts Raked up— Signs of the Times — Under Lincoln— S. P. 
Chase as Secretary — The National Currency Act— Enormous Increase of the National 
Debt — Facts and Figures— The Credit of the Government Sustained — President Grant's 
Rule— George S. Boutwell made Secretary — Great Expectations— Mr. Boutwell's Labors, 
Policy and Success— The Great and Growing Prosperity of the Nation, .... 284 

CHAPTER XXX. 

INSIDE THE TREASURY — T HE HISTORY OF A DOLLAR. 

A Washington Tradition— "Old Hickory" Erects his Cane — "Put the Building Right 
Here "—Treasury Corner-Stme Laid — Robert Mills' Discolored Colonnade — Where 
"Privileged Mortals" Work— A Very Costly Building— Rapid Extension of Business- 
Splendid Situation of the Building— The Workers Within— The Government Takes a 
Holiday— The Business of Three Thousand People— The Mysteries of the Treasury- 
Inside the Rooms— Mary Harris's Revenge— The "Drones" in the Hive— Making 
Love in Office Hours— Flirtations in Public— A Vast Refuge for the Unfortunate— Two 
Classes of Employe's— A List of Miserable Sinners— A Pitiful Ancient Dame— A Protigi 
of President Lincoln — Women's Work in the Treasury — The Bureau of Printing and 
Engraving — A very Hot Precinct — Rendering a Strict Account — Not a Cent Missing— 
The "Chief's" Report— Dealing in Big Figures— The Story of a Paper Dollar— In the 
Upper Floor — The Busy Workers— Night Work — Where the Paper is Made — The 'Lo- 
calized Blue Fibre"— The Obstacle to the Counterfeiter— The Automatic Register- 
Keeping Watch— The Counters and Examiners— Supplying the Bank Note Companies 
— " The Amorican " and "The National "—An Armed Escort — No Incomplete Notes 
Possible — Varieties of Printing— The Contract with Adams' Express — Printing the 
Notes and Currency— Internal Revenue Stamps— Thirty Young Lrulies Count, the 
Money — Manufacturing the Plates— The Engraving Division— " The Finest Engravers 
in the Country " — The Likoness of Somebody — Transferring a Portrait—" Men of Many 
Minds" — The Division of Labor— Delicate Operations — A Pressure of Five or Six Tons 
— The Plate Complete—" Re-entoriug " a Plate — An "Impression" — How Old Plates 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAGE. 

are Used up — A Close Inspection — Defying Imitation — The Geometric Lathe — Tracing 
" Lines of .Beauty " for More than Forty Years, 303 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE WORKERS IN THE TREASURY — HOW THE MONEY IS MADE. 

The Dollar with the Counters— In the Tubs—Getting a Wetting— Servants of Necessity— 
That Scorching Koof— Brown Paper Bonnets— Earning their Daily Dollar — The Work 
Progressing — In the Press— A State of Dampness— Squaring Accounts — Calling for a 
Thousand — Accounting for Them— Superintending the Work— The Face-printing Divis- 
ion—The United States " Sealer " — One Hundred and Thirty-five Presses at Work- 
Printing Cigar-Stamps and Gold- Notes of Many Colors— Presses " Flying "—Quick 
with Dangerous Motion— With a Begrimed Face— The " Help-mate " of his Toil— The 
Fiery Little Brazier — What the Man Does — The Woman's Work — The Automatic Reg- 
ister—An Observer Without a Sou; — Our Damp Little Dollar — The Drying Room— The 
First Wrinkles — Looking Wizened and Old— Rejuvenating a Dollar — Underneath. Two 
Hundred and Forty Tons— Smooth and Polished — Precious to the Touch — A Virgin Dol- 
lar — The " Sealer " at Work— Mutilated Paper— What the Women are Paid— The Sur- 
face-Sealing Division — Seal Printing— The Aristocratic Green Seal — The Numbering 
Division — Attended Solely by Women and Girls — Critically Examined — A Lady Charged 
with Errors — Securing Adequate Care — Dividing the Dollars — To Start Alone — Ladies 
Serene at Work— Snowy Aprons and Delicate Ribbons — Needling the Sheet — A Blade 
that Does Not Fail — Sorting the Notes — The Manipulation of the Ladies — The Dollar 
" In its Little Bed " — Dollar on Dollar — " Awaiting the Final Call" — The Mandate of 
Uncle Sam — Fourteen Divisions — Making Up Accounts — Tracing a Note—A Perfect 
System of " Checks "—The Safeguards— The Chief of the Bureau, .... 317 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE LAST DAYS OF A DOLLAR. 

The Division of Issues— Ready for the World— Starting Right— Forty Busy Maids and 
Matrons— Counting Out the Money— Human Machines— A Lady Counting for a Dozen 
Years— Fifty Thousand Notes in a Day— Counting Four Thousand Notes in Twenty 
Minutes — Travelling on Behalf of Uncle Sam— In Need of a Looking-Over — " Detailed" 
for the Work — What has Passed Through Some Fingers— Big Figures — Packing Away 
the Dollars — The Cash Division— The Marble Cash-Room — The Great Iron Vault — 
Where Uncle Sam Keeps His Money — Some Nice Little Packages— Taking it Coolly — 
One Hundred Millions of Dollars in Hand— Some Little White Bags— The Gold Taken 
from the Banks of Richmond — Anxious to Get Their Money Back — A Little Difficulty 
— Not Yet " Charged " — A Distinction withouta Difference— Charming Variety — A Nice 
Little Hoard — Five Hundred Millions Stored Away — The Secret of the Locks — The Hy- 
draulic Elevator — Sending the Money off— How the Money is Transported — Begrimed, 
Demoralized, and Despoiled — Where is our Pretty Dollar?— The Redemption Division 
— Counting Mutilated Currency — Women at Work — Sorting Old Greenbacks — Three 
Hundred Counterfeit Dollars Daily— Detecting Bad Notes — " Short," " Over," and 
" Counterfeit " — Difficulty of Counterfeiting Fresh Notes— Vast Amounts Sent for 
Redemption — Thirty-one Million Dollars in One Year — The Assistant Treasurer at 
New York — The Cancelling Room — The Counter's Report — The Bundle in a Box — 
Awkward Responsibility—" Punching" Old Dollars— They are Chopped in Two— Pay- 
ing for Mistakes — The Funeral of the Dollar — The Burning, Fiery Furnace — "The 
Burning Committee " — What They Burn Every Other Day — The End of the Dollar, . 326 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THE GREAT CASH-ROOM — THE WATCH-DOG OF THE TREASURY. 

No Need for Dirty Money— The Flowers of July— Money Affairs — The Great Cash-Room 
— Its Marble Glories— A Glance Inside— The Beautiful Walls— A Good Deal of Very 
Bad Taste — Only Made of Plaster — The Clerks of the Cash-Room — New Money for Old 
— The National Treasury — " The Watch-Dog " of the Treasury — The Custodian of the 
Cash — A Broken-nosed Pitcher — Ink for the Autographs — His Ancient Chair — "The 
General" — "Crooked, Crotchety and Great-hearted" — "Principles" and Pantaloons 
— Below the Surface — An Unpaintable Face— An Object of Personal Curiosity— Dick 
and Dolly pay the General a Visit — How the Thing is Done — " Pretty Thoroughly 
Wrought Up"— A Couple without any Claims— Gratified in the Very Jolliest Fashion 
— Getting his Autograph — A Specimen for the Folks at Home — Realizing a Responsi- 
bility—Where the Treasurer Sleeps— Going the Round at Night — Making Assurance 
Sure — Awakened by a Strong Impression — Sleepless— In the " Small Hours " — Finding 
the Door Open — A Careless Clerk — The Care of Eight Hundred Millions — On the Alert 
— The Secretary's Room— Three at the Table — Doings and Duties — The Labors of the 
Secretary and Comptrollers— The Auditors — The Solicitor's Office— The Light-House 
Board — The Coast Survey— Internal Revenue Department, 339 



XVI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

WOMAN'S WORK IN THE DEPARTMENTS — WHAT THEY DO AND HOW THEY 

DO IT. PAQK . 

Women Experts in the Treasury — General Spinner's Opinion — A Woman's Logic — The 
Gifts of Women — Their Superiority to Men— Money Burnt in the Chicago Fire — Cases 
of Valuable -Rubbish — Identifying Burnt Greenbacks— The Treasure Saved — The Ashes 
of the Boston Fire — From the Bottom of the Mississippi — Mrs. Patterson Saves a 
"Pile" of Money — Money in the Toes of Stockings — In the Stomachs of Men and 
Beasts — From the Bodies of the Murdered and Drowned— Not Fairly Paid — One Hun- 
dred and Eighty Women at Work — 'The Broom Brigade" — Scrubbing the Floois — 
The Soldier's Widow— Stories which Might be Told— Meditating Suicide— The Struggle 
of Life— How a Thousand Women are Employed — Speaking of their Characters — The 
Ill-paid Servants of the Country— Chief Justice Taney's Daughters— Colonel Albert 
Johnson's Daughter— A Place Where Men are Not Employed— Writing "for the Press" 
—Miss Grundy of New York— The Internal Revenue Bureau — "Marvels of Mechanical 
Beauty "—Women of Business Capacity— A Lady as Big as Two Books! — In a Man's 
Place— A Disgrace to the Nation — Working for Two, Paid for One— How " Retrench- 
ment'' is Carried Out— In the Departments— Beaten by a Woman — The Post Office De- 
partment — Folding " Dead Letters "—A Woman who has Worked Well — " Sorrow Does 
Not Kill " — The Patent Office — The Agricultural Department — Changes Which Should 
be Made, 350 

CHAPTER XXXV. 
women's work in the treasury. 

The Scales of Justitia— Where They Hang and Where They Do Not Hang— The Difference 
Between Men and Women — Reform a "Sham!" — The First Women- Clerks — A Shame- 
ful and Disgraceful Fraud — What Two Women Did — Cutting Down the Salaries of 
Women — The First Woman-Clerk in the Treasury —Taking Her Husband's Place — 
Working " in Her Brother's Name " — A Matter of Expediency — The Feminine Tea- 
Pot — The Secretary Growls at the Tea-Pots — The Hegira of the Tea-Pots — Thackeray's 
Opinion of Nature's Intentions — Blind on One Side — In War Days — General Spinner 
Visits Secretary Chase — " A Woman can Use Scissors Better than a Man" — Profound 
Discovery! — "She'll do it Cheaper "— " Light Work" — '-Recognized'' — Besieged by 
Women — Scenes of Distress and Trouble — Hundreds of Homeless Women — After the 
War — How the Appointments were Made— Creating an Interest— The Advantages of 
the "Sinners" — Infamous Intrigues — The Baseness of Certain Senators — Virtue Spat- 
tered with Mud — A Disgrace to the Nation — Secret Doings in High Places— New Civil 
Service Rules — Sounding Magnanimous— Passing the Examination — The Irrepressible 
Masculine Tyrants — The New Rules a Perfect Failure— Up to the Mark, but not Win- 
ning — ^n Alarming Suggestion — Men versus Women — Tampering with the Scales — 
Bow Much a Woman Ought to be Paid — Opinion of a Man in Power — Interesting De- 
scription of an Average Representative — " Keeping Women in Their Place " — Getting 
Up a Speech on Woman — The Man who Stayed at Home — Generosity of the " Back- 
Pay " Congress — What Women Believe Ought to be Done, . ' 369 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

MR. PARASITE IN OFFICE — HOW PLACE AND POWER ARE WON. 

Government Official Life— Its Effects on Human Nature— Keeping his Eye Open— The 
Sweet and Winning Ways of Mr. Parasite— In Office— The Fault of " the People" and 
" my Friends "—Shrinking from Responsibilities — Pulling the Wool over the Eyes of 

the Innocent— Writing Letters in a Big Way — The " Dark Ways " of Wicked Mr. P 

—A Suspicious Yearning for Private Life— The Sweets of Office— A Little Change of 
Opinion— A Man Afflicted with Too Many Friends— Forgetting Things that Were — 
— lolm Jones is not Encouraged — Post-offices as Plentiful as Blackberries — Receiving 
Oliico-seekers— " The Worst. Thing in the World for You'' — Dismissing John— Over- 
crowded Pastures — John's Own Private Opinion — The "Mighty Messenger" — Govern- 
ment-Servants— Peculiar Impartiality of the Man in Office — What the Successful Man 
Said— 1 ( haugo my Opinion of Him — A Certain Kind of Man, and Where He can be 
Found 382 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE — ITS MARVELS AND MYSTERIES. 

The Post -OlUee— Its Architecture— The Monolithic Corinthian Columns -The Postal Ser- 
vice in Early 'rimes— The Ai-t of Queen Anne's Reign— " Her Majesty's Colonies" — 
After the Revolution— The First Postmaster-General— The Present Chief— A Cabinet 
Minister— The Subordinate Officers— Their Positions and Duties — The Ocean Mail 
Postal Service— The Contract Office— The Finance Office— The Inspection Office— Com- 



CONTENTS. XVll 

PAGE. 

plaints and Misdoings— 'Benjamin Franklin's Appointment — He goes into Debt — One 
Hundred and Twenty Years Ago — Franklin Performs Wonderful Works — His Ideas 
of Speed — Between Boston and Philadelphia in Six Weeks— Dismissed from Office— 
The Congress of " The Confederation " — A New Post Office System— Franklin Conies 
In Again — The Inspector of Dead Letters — Not Allowed to Take Copies of Letters — 
Only seventy- five Offices in the States — Primitive Regulations— Only One Clerk- Gov- 
ernment Stages— The Office at Washington — Saved from the British Troops— Frank- 
lin's Old Ledger— The Present Number of Post Offices— The Dead Letter Office— The 
Ladies Too Much Squeezed — Some of the Ladies " Packed " — Opening the Dead Let- 
ters — Why Certain Persons are Trusted — Three Thousand Thoughtless People — Valua- 
ble Letters — Ensuring Correctness — The Property Branch — The Touching Story of the 
Photographs— The .Return Branch— What the Postmaster Says, .... 388 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR — UNCLE SAM'S DOMESTIC AR- 
RANGEMENTS. 

Inadequate Accommodation in Heaven— Defects of Our Great Public Buildings — The 
Public Archives — Valuable Documents in Jeopardy — Talk of Moving the Capital — A 
Dissension of a Hundred Years — Concerning Certain Idiots — A Day in the Patent 
Office — The Inventive Genius of the Country — Aggressions of the Home Department — 
A Comprehensive Act of Congress — Seven Divisions of the Department of the Inte- 
rior — The Disbursing Division — Division of Indian Affairs — Lands and Railroads— Pen- 
sions and Patents — Public Documents — Division of Appointments — The Superintendent 
of the Building — The Secretary of the Interior and his Subordinates — Pensions and 
their Recipients — Indian Affairs — How the Savages are Treated — Over Twenty-one 
Million of Dollars Credited to their Little Account — The Census Bureau — A Rather 
Big Work — The Bureau of Patents — What is a Patent ? — A Self-supporting Institution 
— A Few Dollars Over— The Use Made of a Certain Brick Building — Secretary Delano 
An Objection Against Him— How Wickedly he Acted to the Women Clerks — '• The 
Accustomed Tyranny of Men " — Cutting Down the Ladies' Salaries — Making Places 
for Useful Voters — A Sweet Prayer for Delano's Welfare — Something about Delano's 
Face, 407 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE PENSION BUREAU — HOW GOVERNMENT PAYS ITS SERVANTS. 
The Generosity of Congress to Itself— How Four Hundred Acts of Congress were Passed 
— How Pensions have Increased and Multiplied — Sneering at Red Tape — The Division 
of Labor — Scrutinizing Petitions — A Heavy Paper Jacket — The Judicial Division — In- 
valids, Widows, and Minors — The Examiner of Pensions— The Difficulties of his Po- 
sition — Unsatisfactory Work — How Claims are Entertained and Tested — What is 
Recortled in the Thirty Enormous Volumes — How many Genuine Cases are Refused — 
One of the Inconveniences of Ignorance — The Claim-Agent Gobbles up the Lion's 
Share — An Extensive Correspondence— How Claims are Mystified, and Money is 
Wasted— The "Reviewer's" Work— The "Rejected Files"— The "Admitted Files" 
— Seventy-five Thousand Claims Pending — Very Ancient Claimants — The Bounty 
Land Division — The Reward of Fourteen Days' Service — The Sum Total of what the 
Government has Paid in Pensions— How the Pensions are Paid — The Finance Division 
— The Largest and the Smallest Pension Office — The Miscellaneous Branch— Investigat- 
ing Frauds— A Poor "Dependent" Woman with Forty Thousand Dollars — How 
"Honest and Respectable" People Defraud the Government — The Medical Division — 
Examining Invalids— The Restoration-Desk— The Appeal-Desk— The Final-Desk— The 
Work that Has Been Done— One Hundred and Fifty Thousand People Grumbling- 
Letter of an Ancient Claimant— The Wrath of a Pugnacious Captain, . . . 418 

CHAPTER XL. 

TREASURES AND CURIOSITIES OF THE PATENT OFFICE — THE MODEL 
ROOM — ITS RELICS AND INVENTIONS. 

The Patent Office Building— Grace and Beauty of its Architecture— Four "Sublime " 
Porticoes— A Pretty Large Passage— The Model Room— " The Exhibition of the Nation" 
— A Room two Hundred and Seventy Feet in Length— The Models— Recording our 
Name — Wonders and Treasures of the Room— Benjamin Franklin's Press— Model 
Fit e-Escapes— Wonderful Fire-Extinguishers— The Efforts of Genius— Sheep-Stalls, 
Rat-Traps, and Gutta Percha— An Ancient Mariner's Compass — Captain Cook's Razor 
— The Atlantic Cable — Original Treaties — The Signatures of Emperors — An Extraordi- 
nary Turkish Treaty — Treasures of the Orient — Rare Medals — The Reward of Major 
Andre's Captors— The Washington Relics— His Old Tent— His Blankets and Bed- 
Curtain— His Chairs and Looking-Glass— His Primitive Mess-Chess and old Tin 
Plates— The Old Clothes of the " Father of His Country "—Military Relics of Well- 
2 



XV111 CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

known Men— Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence— "Washington's Com- 
mission—Model of an Extraordinary Boat— Abraham Lincoln as an Inventor— The 
Hat Worn on the Fatal Night— The Gift of the Tycoon— The Efforts of Genius— A 
Machine to Force Hens to Lay Eggs— A Hook for Fishing Worms out of the Human 
Stomach— The Library of the Patent Office, 436 

CHAPTER XLI. 

THE BUREAU OF PATENTS — CRAZY INVENTORS AND WONDERFUL 
INVENTIONS. 

Patent-Rights in Steamboats — Origin of Copyright and Patent-Laws— Congress Settles 
the Matter— A Board of "Disinterested, Competent " Persons— Destruction of the 
Patent-Office by Fire— The New Building— The Corps of Examiners— The Commis- 
sioner's Speech— Twenty Thousand Applications per annum— Fourteen Thousand Pat- 
ents Granted in One V ear— "Wonderful Expansion of Inventive Genius— "The Uni- 
versal Yankee " — Second-hand Inventions— Where the Inventions Come From— Taking 
Out a Patent for the Lord's Prayer— A Patent for a Cow's Tail— A Lady's Patent — 
Hesitating to Accept a Million Dollars — How Patentees are Protected— The American 
System — What American Inventors Have Done and "What they Have n't— The First 
Superintendent — The Present Commissioner — Exploits of General Leggett — His Effi- 
ciency in Office — The Inventor Alwavs a Dreamer — Perpetual Motion — The Invention 
of a D. D. — His Little Machine — "Original with Me "—Silencing the Doctor — A New 
Process of Embalming — A Dead Body Sent to the Office— Utilizing Niagara — A Gen- 
erous Offer — An Englishman's Invention — Inventors in I'aris — How to Kill Lions and 
Tigers in the United States with Catmint— A Fearful Bomb Shell— Eccentric Letters- 
Amusing Specimens of Correspondence, 446 

CHAPTER XLII. 

THE WAR DEPARTMENT. 

The Secretary-of-War— His Duties — The Department of the Navy — Efficiency of the 
Army — The Custodv of the Flags — Patriotic Trophies— The War of the Rebellion — 
Captured Flags— An Ugly Flag and a Strange Motto— " Crown for the Brave"— Sic 
Semper Tyrannis — The Stars and Stripes — The Black Flag — No Quarter — The Military 
Establishment — The Adjutant-General's Office— The Quartermaster-General's Office — 
The Commissary-General's Office — The Paymaster-General— The Surveyor-General — 
The Engineer's Office— The Washington Aqueduct— Topographical Engineers — The 
Ordnance Bureau — The War Department Building— During the War— Lincoln's Soli- 
tary Walk — Secretary Stanton — The Exigencies of War — The Medical History of the 
War— Dr. Hammond— Dr. J. H. Baxter — Collecting Physiological Data — The Inspec- 
tion of over Half a Million Persons — Who is Unfit for Military Service — Various Na- 
tionalities Compared— Curious Calculations Respecting Height, Health and Color — 
Healthy Emigrants — Remarkable Statistical Results — The Physical Statu* of the 
Nation, 460 

CHAPTER XLHI. 

THE ARMY MEDICAL MUSEUM — ITS CURIOSITIES AND WONDERS. 

Ford's Theatre— Its Interesting Memories— The Last Festivities— Assassination of Presi- 
dent Lincoln — Two Years Later — Effects of " War, Disease, and Human Skill "—Col- 
lection of Pathological Specimens — The Army Medical Museum Opened — Purchase of 
Ford's Theatre— Its Present Aspect — Ghastly Specimens — Medical and Surgical Histo- 
ries of the War— The Library— A Book Four Centuries Old— Rare Old Volumes— The 
Most Interesting of the National Institutions — Various Opinions— Effects on Visitors — 
An Extraordinary Withered Arm — A Dried Sioux Baby! — Its Poor Little Nose — A 
Well-dressed Child— Its Buttons and Beads— Casts of Soldier-Martyrs— Making a New 
Nose — Vassear's Mounted Craniums— Model Skeletons— A Giant, Seven Feet High — 
Skeleton of a Child— All that Remains of Wilkes Booth, the Assassin— Fractures by 
Shot and Shell— General Sickles Contributes His Quota— A Case of Skills — Arrow- 
bead Wounds— Nine Savage Sabre-Cuts— Seven Bullets in One Head— Phenomenal 
Skulls— A Powerful Nose— An Attempted Suicide— A Proverb Corrected— Specimen 
from the Paris Catacombs— An " Interesting Case " — Typical Heads of the Human 
Race— Remarkable Indian Relics — " Flatheads " — The Work of Indian Arrows— An 
Extraordinary Story — A "Pet" Curiosity — A Japanese Manikin— Tattooed Heads- 
Representatives of Animated Nature— Adventure of Captain John Smith— A '• Stin- 
garee "— Tho Microscopical Division— Medical Records of the War— Preparing Speci- 
mens, 475 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

"OLD PROBABILITIES " AT HOME — THE WEATHER BUREAU. 
"Old Probabilities"— An Interestine Subject— Tho Weather Bureau— The Experience of 
Fifty Centuries— Value of Scientific Knowledge— Meteorological Observations— Briga- 



CONTENTS. XIX 

PAGE. 

dier-General Albert J. Meyer— Hie Life and Career— He Introduces System and Order 
Foreseeing the Approach of Storms— The Fate of the Metis — Quicker than the Storm — 
The First Warning by Telegraph— Exchanging Reports with Canada — The " Observ- 
ing Stations " — Protecting the River Commerce — The Signal Corps — The Examinations 
—The Sergeant's Duties— The Signal-Stations— The Work of the Observers— Preparing 
Bulletins at Washington— Professor Maury's Account— Safeguards Against Mistakes- 
Deducing Probabilities— Despatching Bulletins — Preparing Meteorological Maps — Re- 
cording Observations— Watching the Storm— The Storm at San Francisco — Prophetic 
Preparations— Perfect Arrangements — Training the Sergeants— General Meyer's Work 
— "Away up G Street"— The Home of Old and Young " Probabilities"— An Extraor- 
dinary Mansion — The " Kites and Windmills " — Inside the Mansion — The Apparatus — 
" The Unerring Weather-Man " — " Old Probabilities " Himself— How Calculations are 
Made—" Young Probabilities "—Interesting Facts, 491 

CHAPTER XLV. 

THE NAVY DEPARTMENT — THE UNITED STATES OBSERVATORY — THE 
STATE DEPARTMENT. 

Primitive Arrangements — The Navy in Early Days— The Department of the Navy Estab- 
lished—The Secretary's Office — The Navy-"V ards and Docks— The Bureau of Construc- 
tion — The Bureau of Provisions and Clothing — Equipment of Vessels — Hureau of 
Ordnance and Hydrography— The Naval Observatory — The Bureau of Medicine— In- 
teresting Statistics— The Navy Seventy Years Ago — The "Day of Small Things " — 
Instructions of the Great Napoleon — Keeping Pace with England — The Glories of 
Foote, Ferry, Porter and Farragut— Scene from the Observatory— Peeping through the 
Telescope — The Mountains in the Moon— The Largest Telescope in the World— Making 
Mathematical Notes — A Passion for Star-gazing — Casting Horoscopes — Gazing for 
Pastime — "For the Sake of Science" — The Chronometers of the Government — Com- 
paring Notes — The Test of Time — Chronometers on Trial — The Wind and Current 
Charts— The Good Deeds of Lieutenant Maury— "The Habits of the Whale "—The 
Equatorial — A Self-acting Telescope — Tho Transit Instrument — The Great Astronomi- 
cal Clock— Telling Time by Telegraph — Hearing the Clock Tick Miles Away — The 
Transit of Venus — Great Preparations — A Trifle of Half-a-Million of Miles — The De- 
partment of Foreign Affairs— The Secretary of State— A Little Secret Suggestion — 
The Diplomatic Bureau— The Consular Bureau — I'lie Disbursing-Agent— The Transla- 
tor—The Clerk-of- Appointments — Clerk-of-the-Rolls— The Clerk-of-Authentications — 
Pardons and Passports— The Superintendent of Statistics, 507 

CHAPTER XL VI. 

THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING-OFFICE — HISTORY OF A " PUB. DOC." 

Another Government Hive— The Largest Printing Establishment in the World— Judge 
Douglass's Villa— The Celebrated " Pub. Doc."—" Making Many Books"— The Conven- 
ience of a "Frank" — The Omnipresent " Doc."— A Weariness to the Flesh— An Av- 
erage "Doc."— A Personal Experience— What the Nation's Printing Costs— " Not 
Worth the Paper " — A Melancholy Fact— Two Sides of the Question — Invaluable "Pub. 
Docs "—Printing a Million Money-Orders— The Stereotype Foundry— A Few Figures— 
The Government Printing Office— A Model Office— Aiding Human Labor — Working by 
Machinery— The Ink-Room— The Private Offices— Mr. Clapp's Comfortable Office— The 
Proof-Reading Room— The Workers There— The Compositors' Room— The Women- 
Workers— Setting Up Her Daily Task— A Quiet Spot for the Executive Printing— The 
Tricks and Stratagems of Correspondents — A Private Press in the White House— The 
Supreme Pride of a Congressional Printer— Rule-and-Figure Work— The Executive 
Binding-Room— Acres of Paper — Specimens of Binding— The " Most Beautiful Bind- 
ing in the World"— Specimen Copies— Binding the Surgical History of the War— The 
Ladies Require a Little More Air— Delicate Gold-Leaf Work— The Folding-Room— An 
Army of Maidens— The Stitching-Room— The Needles of Women— A Busy Girl at 
Work— "Thirty Cents Apiece "—Getting Used to It— The Girl Over Yonder— The Man- 
ual Labor System— The Story of a " Pub. Doc."— Preparing "Copy "--" Setting Up "— 
Making-dp " Forms "--Reading "Proof"— The Press Room— Going to Press— Fold- 
ing, Stitching, and Binding-Sent Out to " The Wide, Wide World," . . . .520 

CHAPTER XLVn. 

THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION — THE AGRICULTURAL BUREAU. 

A Singular Bequest — Strange Story of James Smithson — A Good Use of Money — Seek- 
ing the Diffusion of Knowledge — Catching a Tear from a Lady's Cheek — Analysis of 
the Same Tear— The Attainments of a Philosopher— A brief Tract on Coffee-Making— 
James Smit.hson's Will — A Genealogical Declaration — Announcing a Bequest to Con- 
gress Discussions and Reports — Praiseworthy Efforts of Robert Dale Owen — The Be- 
quest Accepted— The Board of Regents— The Plan of the Institution— Its Ditent and 



XX CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Object— Changes Made by the Regents— Ex- Officio Members of the Institution — " The 
Power Behind the Throne" — The Secretary — The Smithsonian Reservation— The 
Smithsonian Building — Its Style of Architecture — Inside the Building — Injuries Re- 
ceived by Fire — Loss of Works of Art — The Museum — Treasures of Art and Science — 
The Results of Thirty Government Expeditions — The Largest Collection in the_,World 
— Valuable Mineral Specimens — All the Vertebrated Animals of North America — Clas- 
sitied Curiosities — The Smithsonian Contributions — Comprehensive Character of the 
Institution — Its Advantages and Operations — Results — The Agricultural Bureau — Its 
Plan and Object — Collecting Valuable Agricultural Facts — Helping the Purchaser of a 
Farm — The Expenses of the Bureau — The Library — Nature-Printing — In the Museum 
— The Great California Plank — Vegetable Specimens — International Exchanges. . . 533 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

OLD HOMES AND HAUNTS OF WASHINGTON. 

The Oldest Home in Washington— The Cottage of David Burns —David Burns's Daughter 
— Singing a Lady's Praises — The Attractions of a Cottage — "Tom Moore" the Poet 
Pays Homage to Fair Marcia— The Favored Suitor— How The Lady was Wooed and 
Won— Mother and Daughter — The Offering to God — The City Orphan Asylum — A 
Costly Mausoleum — The Assassination Conspiracy — Persecuting the Innocent — A Sug- 
gestion for the Board of Works — The Octagon House — A Comfortable Income — The 
Pleasures of Property— A Haunted House — Apple-Stealing— " Departed Joys and 
Stomach-Aches " — The Jackson Monument— The Tragedy of the Decatur House — A 
Fatal Duel— The Stockton-Sickles House— A Spot of Frightful Interest— The Club- 
House— Assassination of Mr. Seward— Scenes of Festivity— The Madison House— Mrs. 
Madison's Popularity — Her Turbans and Her Snuff— The Exploit of Commodore Welkes 
—Arlington Hotel— The House of Charles Sumner— Corcoran Castle— The Finest Pic- 
ture Gallery in America— Powers' Greek Slave—" Maggie Beck "— Kalorama— During 
the War— Rock Creek— The Romantic Story of Mr. Barlow's Ntece— Francis P. Blair— 
Duddington House— The Brother of Lord Ellenborough— Forgetting His Own Name 
—Locking Up a Wife— The "Ten Buildings "—The Ketreat of Louis Phillippe— Old 
Capitol Prison— The Temporary Capitol— The Deeds of Ann Royal and Sally Brass- 
" Paul Pry " — Blackmailing— Feared By all Mankind— An Unpleasant Sort of Woman 
— Arrested on Suspicion — A, Small American Bastile— Where Wirz was Hung, . . 549 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

MOUNT VERNON — MEMORIAL DAY — ARLINGTON. 

The Tomb of Washington— The Pilgrims who "Visit it— Where George and Martha Wash- 
ington Rest— The American Mecca— The Thought of Other Graves— The Defenders of 
the Republic— Eating Boiled Eggs— A Butterfly Visit — The Old Mansion-House— Pa- 
triarchal Dogs — Remembering a Feast — The Room in which Washington Died— The 
Great Key of" the Bastile— The Gift of Lafayette— The Harpsichord of Eleanor Custis 
—The Belle of Mount Vernon — Moralizing — Inside the Mansion — Uncle Tom's Bouquets 
—Beautiful Scenery— Memorial Day at Arlington— The Soldiers' Orphans— The Grave 
of Forty Soldiers— The Sacrifice of a Widow's Son— The Children's Offering — The Rec- 
ord of the Brave— A National Prayer for the Dead, 581 



Ten Tears in Washington. 

— »-«-• — . 

CHAPTER I. 
FEOM THE VERY BEGINNING. 

The Young Surveyor's Dream — Humboldt's View of W» ashington — A Vision 
of the Future Capital — The United States Government on Wheels — 
Ambitious Offers — The Rival Rivers — Potomac Wins — Battles in Con- 
gress — Patriotic Offers of Territory — Temporary Lodgings for Eleven 
Years — Old-Fashioned Simplicity — He Couldn't Afford Furniture — A 
Great Man's Modesty — Conflicting Claims — Smith Backs Baltimore — A 
Convincing Fact — The Dreadful Quakers — A Condescending Party — 
A Slight Amendment — An Old Bill Brought to Light Again — The 
Indian Place with the Long Name — Secession Threatened — The Future 
Strangely Foreshadowed — A Dinner of Some Consequence — How it was 
Done — Really a Stranger — A Nice Proposal — Sweetening the Pill — A 
" Revulsion of Stomach " — Fixed on the Banks of the Potomac. 

ORE than a century ago a young surveyor, Captain 
of the Virginia troops, camped with Braddock's 
forces upon the hill now occupied by the "Washington 
Observatory, looked down as Moses looked from Nebo 
upon the promised land, until he saw growing before his 
prophetic sight the city of the future, the Capital of a 
vast and free people then unborn. This youth was George 
"Washington. The land upon which he gazed was the un- 
dreamed of site of the undreamed of city of the Republic, 
then to be. This youth, ordained of God to be the Father 
of the Republic, was the prophet of its Capital. He fore- 
saw it, he chose it, he served it, he loved it; but as a 
Capital he never entered it. 



22 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Gazing from the green promontory of Camp Hill, 
what was the sight of land and water upon which the 
youthful surveyor looked down ? It was fair to see, so 
fair that Humboldt declared after traveling around the 
earth, that for the site of a city the entire globe does 
not hold its equal. On his left rose the wooded bights 
of Georgetown. On his right, the hills of Virginia 
stretched outward toward the ocean. From the luxu- 
' rious meadows which zoned these hills, the Potomac 
River — named by the Indians Cohonguroton, River of 
Swans — from its source in the Alleghany Mountains, 
flowing from north-west to south-west, here expanded 
more than the width of a mile, and then in concentrated 
majesty rolled on to meet Chesapeake Bay, the river 
James, and the ocean. South and east, flowing to meet 
it, came the beautiful Anacostin, now called Eastern 
Branch, and on the west, winding through its pictur- 
esque bluffs, ran the lovely Rock Creek, pouring its 
bright waters into the Potomac, under the Hights of 
Georgetown. At the confluence of these two rivers, 
girdled by this bright stream, and encompassed by hills, 
the young surveyor looked across a broad amphitheatre 
of rolling plain, still covered with native oaks and un- 
dergrowth. It was not these he saw. His prescient 
sight forecast the future. He saw the two majestic 
rivers bearing upon their waters ships bringing to these 
green shores the commerce of many nations. He saw 
the gently climbing hills crowned with villas, and in the 
stead of oaks and undergrowth, broad streets, a populous 
city, magnificent buildings, outrivaling the temples of 
antiquity — the Federal City, the Capital of the vast Re- 
public yet to be ! The dreary camp, the weary march, 



A GOVERNMENT ON WHEELS. 23 

privation, cold, hunger, bloodshed, revolution, patient 
victory at last, all these were to be endured, outlived, 
before the beautiful Capital of his future was reached. 
Did the youth foresee these, also? Many toiling, strug- 
gling, suffering years bridged the dream of the young 
surveyor and the first faint dawn of its fulfillment. 

After the Declaration of Independence, before the adop- 
tion of the Constitution of the United States, its govern- 
ment moved slowly and painfully about on wheels. As 
the exigencies of war demanded, Congress met at Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Annapolis, 
Trenton, and New York. During these troubled years 
it was the ambition of every infant State to claim the 
seat of government. For this purpose New York offered 
Kingston ; Rhode Island, Newport ; Maryland, Anapoiis ; 
Virginia, Williamsburg. 

June 21, 1783, Congress was insulted at Philadelphia 
by a band of mutineers, which the State authorities could 
not subdue. The body adjourned to Princeton ; and the 
troubles and trials of its itinerancy caused the subject of 
a permanent national seat of government to be taken up 
and discussed with great vehemence from that time till 
the formation of the Constitution. The resolutions of- 
fered, and the votes taken in these debates, indicate that 
the favored site for the future Capital lay somewhere be- 
tween the banks of the Delaware and the Potomac — "near 
Georgetown," says the most oft-repeated sentence. Octo- 
ber 30, 1784, the subject was discussed by Congress, at 
Trenton. A long debate resulted in the appointment of 
three commissioners, with full power to lay out a district 
not exceeding three, nor less than two miles square, on 
the banks of either side of the Delaware, for a Federal 



24 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

town, with power to buy soil and to enter into contracts 
for the building of a Federal House, President's house, 
house for Secretaries, etc. 

Notwithstanding the adoption of this resolution, these 
Commissioners never entered upon their duties. Prob- 
ably the lack of necessary appropriations did not hinder 
them more than the incessant attempts made to repeal 
the act appointing the Commissioners, and to substitute 
the Potomac for the Delaware, as the site of the antici- 
pated Capital. Although the name of President Wash- 
ington does not appear in these controversies, even then 
the dream of the young surveyor was taking on in the 
President's mind the tangible shape of reality. First, 
after the war for human freedom and the declaration of 
national independence, was the desire in the heart of 
George Washington that the Capital of the new Nation 
whose armies he had led to triumph, should rise above 
the soil of his native Dominion, upon the banks of the 
great river where he had foreseen it in his early dream. 
That he used undue influence with the successive Con- 
gresses which debated and voted on many sites, not the 
slightest evidence remains, and the nobility of his char- 
acter forbids the supposition. But the final decision at- 
tests to the prevailing potency of his preferences and 
wishes, and the immense pile of correspondence which 
he has left behind on the subject, proves that next to the 
establishment of its independence, was the Capital of the 
Republic dear to the heart of George Washington. May 
10, 1787, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Georgia 
voted for, and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and 
Maryland against the proposition of Mr. Lee of Virginia, 
that the Board of Treasurv should take measures for 



HOW THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT IN CONGKESS. 25 

erecting the necessary public buildings for the accommo- 
dation of Congress, at Georgetown, on the Potomac River, 
as soon as the soil and jurisdiction of said town could be 
obtained. 

Many and futile were the battles fought by the old 
Congress, for the site of the future Capital. These bat- 
tles doubtless had much to do with Section 8, Article 1, 
of the Constitution of the United States, which declares 
that Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive leg- 
islation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not ex- 
ceeding ten miles square,) as may, by cession of particular 
States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat 
of government of the United States. This article was 
assented to by the convention which framed the Consti- 
tution, without debate. The adoption of the Constitution 
was followed spontaneously by most munificent acts on 
the part of several States. New York appropriated its 
public buildings to the use of the new government, and 
Congress met in that city April 6, 1789. On May 15, 
following, Mr. White from Virginia, presented to the 
House of Representatives a resolve of the Legislature of 
that State, offering to the Federal government ten miles 
square of its territory, in any part of that State, which 
Congress might choose as the seat of the Federal gov- 
ernment. The day following, Mr. Seney presented a 
similar act from the State of Maryland. Memorials and 
petitions followed in quick succession from Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey and Maryland. The resolution of the Vir- 
ginia Legislature begged for the co-operation of Mary- 
land, offering to advance the sum of one hundred and 
twenty thousand dollars to the use of the general gov- 
ernment tow r ard erecting public buildings, if the Assem- 



26 TEN YEARS IN" WAS KING TON. 

bly of Maryland would advance two-fifths of a like sum. 
Whereupon the Assembly of Virginia immediately voted' 
to cede the necessary soil, and to provide seventy-two 
thousand dollars toward the erection of public buildings. 
"New York and Pennsylvania gratuitously furnished ele- 
gant and convenient accommodations for the government" 
during the eleven years which Congress passed in their 
midst, and offered to continue to do the same. The Leg- 
islature of Pennsylvania went further in lavish gener- 
osity, and voted a sum of money to build a house for the 
President. The house which it built was lately the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. The present White House is 
considered much too old-fashioned and shabby to be the 
suitable abode of the President of the United States. A 
love of ornate display has taken the place of early Re- 
publican simplicity. When George Washington saw the 
dimensions of the house which the Pennsylvanians were 
building for the President's Mansion, he informed them 
at once that he would never occupy it, much less incur 
the expense of buying suitable furniture for it. In those 
Spartan days it never entered into the head of the State 
to buy furniture for the * Executive Mansion." Thus the 
Chief Citizen, instead of going into a palace like a sa- 
trap, rented and furnished a modest house belonging to 
Mr. Robert Morris, in Market street. Meanwhile the 
great battle for the permanent seat of government went 
on unceasingly among the representatives of conflicting 
States. No modern debate, in length and bitterness, has 
equalled this of the first Congress under the Constitution. 
Nearly all agreed that New York was not sufficiently cen- 
tral. There was an intense conflict concerning the rela- 
tive merits of Philadelphia and Germantown ; Havre de 



VIRGINIA INJURED. 27 

Grace and a place called Wright's Ferry, on the Susque- 
hanna ; Baltimore on the Patapsco, and Connogocheague 
on the Potomac. Mr. Smith proclaimed Baltimore, and 
the fact that its citizens had subscribed forty thousand 
dollars for public buildings. The South Carolinians cried 
out against Philadelphia because of its majority of Qua- 
kers who, they said, were eternally dogging the Southern 
members with their schemes of emancipation. Many 
others ridiculed the project of building palaces in the 
woods. Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts declared that it was 
the hight of unreasonableness to establish the seat of 
government so far south that it would place nine States 
out of the thirteen so far north of the National Capital ; 
while Mr. Page protested that New York was superior to 
any place that he knew for the orderly and decent be- 
havior of its inhabitants, an assertion, sad to say, no 
longer applicable to the city of New York. 

September 5, 1789, a resolution passed, the House of 
Representatives " that the permanent seat of the govern- 
ment of the United States ought to be at some conven- 
ient place on the banks of the Susquehanna, in the State 
of Pennsylvania. The passage of this bill awoke the 
deepest ire in the members from the South. Mr. Madi- 
son declared that if the proceedings of that day could 
have been foreseen by Virginia, that State would never 
have condescended to become a party to the Constitution. 
Mr. Scott remarked truly : " The future tranquillity and 
well being of the United States depended as much on 
this as on any question that ever had or ever could come 
before Congress;" while Fisher Ames declared that every 
principle of pride and honor, and even of patriotism, was 
engaged in the debate. 



28 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

The bill passed the House by a vote of thirty-one to 
nineteen. The Senate amended it by striking out " Sus- 
quehanna," and inserting a clause making the permanent 
seat of government Germantown, Pennsylvania, provided 
the State of Pennsylvania should give security to pay 
one hundred thousand dollars for the erection of public 
buildings. The House agreed to these amendments. 
Both Houses of Congress agreed upon Germantown as 
the Capital of the Republic, and yet the final passage of 
the bill was hindered by a slight amendment. 

June 28, another old bill was dragged forth and 
amended by inserting "on the River Potomac, at some 
place between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and 
the Connogocheague." This was finally passed, July 16, 
1790, entitled "An Act establishing the temporary and 
permanent seat of the government of the United States." 
The word temporary applied to Philadelphia, whose dis- 
appointment in not becoming the final Capital was to be 
appeased by Congress holding their sessions there till 
1800, when, as a member expressed it, "they were to 
go to the Indian place with the long name, on the 
Potomac." 

Human bitterness and dissension were even then rife 
in both Houses of Congress. The bond which bound 
the new Union of States together was scarcely welded, 
and yet secession already was an openly uttered threat. 
An amendment had been offered to the funding act, pro- 
viding for the assumption of the State debts to the amount 
of twenty-one millions, which was rejected by the House. 
The North favored assumption and the South opposed it. 
Just then reconciliation and amity were brought about 
between the combatants precisely as they often are in 



DINNER TABLE LEGISLATION. Z9 

our own time, over a well-laid dinner table, and a bot- 
tle of rare old wine. Jefferson was then Secretary of 
State, and Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treas- 
ury. Hamilton thought that the North would yield and 
consent to the establishment of the Capital on the Poto- 
mac, if the South would agree to the amendment to as- 
sume the State debts. Jefferson and Hamilton met acci- 
dentally in the street, and the result of their half an 
hour's walk "backward and forward before the President's 
door" was the next day's dinner party, and the final, 
irrevocable fixing of the National Capital on the banks 
of the Potomac. How it was done, as an illustration of 
early legislation, which has its perfect parallel in the leg- 
islation of the present day, can best be told in Jefferson's 
own words, quoted from one of his letters. He says : 
" Hamilton was in despair. As I was going to the Pres- 
ident's one day I met him in the street. He walked me 
backward and forward before the President's door for 
half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into 
which the legislature had been wrought ; the disgust of 
those who were called the creditor States ; the danger of 
the secession of their members, and the separation of the 
States. He observed that the members of the adminis- 
tration ought to act in concert .... that the President 
was the centre on which all administrative questions 
finally rested; that all of us should rally around him 
and support by joint efforts measures approved by him, 
.... that an appeal from me to the judgment and dis- 
cretion of some of my friends might effect a change in 
the vote, and the machine of government now suspended, 
might be again set in motion. I told him that I was 
really a stranger to the whole subject, not having yet 



60 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

informed myself of the system of finance adopted .... 
that if its rejection endangered a dissolution of our Un- 
ion at this incipient stage, I should deem that the most 
unfortunate of all consequences, to avert which all par- 
tial and temporary evils should be yielded. 

" I proposed to him, however, to dine with me the next 
day, and I would invite another friend or two, bring them 
into conference together and I thought it impossible that 
reasonable men, consulting together coolly, could fail by 
some mutual sacrifices of opinion to form a compromise 
which was to save the Union. The discussion took place. 
.... It was finally agreed to, that whatever importance 
had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, 
the preservation of the Union and of concord among the 
States was more important, and that therefore it would 
be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded 
to effect which some members should change their votes. 
But it was observed that this pill would be peculiarly 
hitter to Southern States, and that some concomitant meas- 
ure should he adopted to sweeten it a little to them, There 
had before been a proposition to fix the seat of govern- 
ment either at Philadelphia or Georgetown on the Poto- 
mac, and it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia 
for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterward, 
this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the fer- 
ment w r hich might be excited by the other measure alone. 
So two of the Potomac members, [White and Lee,] but 
White with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive, 
agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton agreed to 
carry the other point .... and so the assumption was 
passed," and the permanent Capital fixed on the banks 
of the Potomac. 




MEN OF MARK, IN WASHINGTON. 



CHAPTER II. 
CROSS PURPOSES AND QUEER SPECULATIONS. 

Born of Much Bother — Long Debates and Pamphlets — Undefined Appre- 
hensions — Debates on the Coming City — Old World Examples — Sir 
James Expresses an Opinion — A Dream of the Distant West — An Old- 
time Want — A Curious Statement of Fact — " Going West" — Where is 
the Centre of Population — An Important Proclamation — Original Land 
Owners — Well-worn Patents — Getting on with Pugnacious Planters — 
Obstinate David Burns — A " Widow's Mite" of Some Magnitude — 
How the Scotchman was Subjugated — "If You Hadn't Married the 
Widow Custis " — A Rather "Forcible Argument" — His Excellency 
" Chooses " — The First Record in Washington — Old Homes and Haunts 
— Purchase of Land — Extent of the City. 

AS we have seen, the Federal City was the object of 
George Washington's devoted love long before its 
birth. It was born through much tribulation. First 
came the long debates and pamphlets of 1790, as to 
whether the seat of the American government should 
be a commercial capital. Madison and his party argued 
that the only way to insure the power of exclusive leg- 
islation to Congress as accorded by the Constitution, w T as 
to remove the Capital as far from commercial interests as 
possible. They declared that the exercise of this author- 
ity over a large mixed commercial community would be 
impossible. Conflicting mercantile interests would cause 
constant political disturbances, and when party feelings 
ran high, or business was stagnant, the commercial capi- 
tal would swarm with an irritable mob brim full of 
wrongs and grievances. This would involve the neces- 
sity of an army standing in perpetual defense of the 



o2 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

capital. London and Westminster were cited as exam- 
ples where the commercial importance of a single city 
had more influence on the measures of government than 
the whole empire outside. Sir James Macintosh was 
quoted, wherein he said " that a great metropolis was to 
be considered as the heart of a political body — as the 
focus of its powers and talents — as the direction of pub- 
lic opinion, and, therefore, as a strong bulwark in the 
cause of freedom, or as a powerful engine in the hands 
of an oppressor." To prevent the Capital of the Re- 
public becoming the latter the Constitution deprived it 
of the elective franchise. The majority in Congress op- 
posed the idea of a great commercial city as the future 
Capital of the country. Nevertheless when a plan for 
the city was adopted it was one of exceptional magnifi- 
cence. It was a dream of the founders of the Capital 
to build a city expressly for its purpose and to build it 
for centuries to come. In view of the vast territory now 
comprehended in the United States their provision for 
the future may seem meagre and limited. But when we 
remember that there were then but thirteen States, that 
railroads and telegraphs were undreamed of as human 
possibilities — that nearly all the empire west of the Po- 
tomac was an unpenetrated wilderness, we may wonder 
at their prescience and wisdom, rather than smile at their 
lack of foresight. Even in that early and clouded morn- 
ing there were statesmen who foresaw the later glory of 
the West fore-ordained to shine on far off generations. 
Says Mr. Madison : "If the calculation be just that we 
double in fifty years we shall speedily behold an aston- 
ishing mass of people on the western waters 

The swarm does not come from the southern but from 



THE COMING WEST. 33 

the northern and eastern hives. I take it that the centre 
of population will rapidly advance in a south-westerly di- 
rection. It must then travel from the Susquehanna if it is 
now found there — it may even extend beyond the Potomac /" 

Said Mr. Vining to the House, " I confess I am in favor 
of the Potomac. I wish the seat of government to be 
fixed there because I think the interest, the honor, and 
the greatness of the country require it. From thence, it 
appears to me, that the raj^s of government will naturally 
diverge to the extremities of the Union. I declare that 
I look upon the western territories from an awful and 
striking point of view. To that region the unpolished 
sons of the earth are flowing from all quarters — men to 
whom the protection of the laws and the controlling 
force of the government are equally necessary." 

In the course of the debate Mr. Calhoun called atten- 
tion to the fact that very few seats of government in the 
world occupied central positions in their respective coun- 
tries. London was on a frontier, Paris far from central, 
the capital of Russia near its border. Even at that early 
date comparatively small importance was attached to a 
geographical centre of territory as indispensable to the 
location of its capital. The only possible objection to a 
capital near the sea-board was then noted by Mr. Madison 
who said, " If it were possible to promulgate our laws by 
some instantaneous operation, it would be of less conse- 
quence where the government might be placed," a possi- 
bility now fulfilled by the daily news from the Capital 
which speeds to the remotest corner of the great land not 
only with the swiftness of lightning but by lightning itself. 

Although the States have more than doubled since the 
days of this first discussion on where the Capital of the 

3 



34 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

United States should be, it is a curious fact that the cen- 
•tre of population has not traveled westward in any pro- 
portionate ratio. According to a table calculated by Dr. 
Patterson of the United States mint, in 1840 the centre 
of population was then in Harrison County, Virginia, one 
hundred and seventy-five miles west of the city of Wash- 
ington. At that time the average progress westward since 
1790 had been, each ten years, thirty-four miles. "This 
average has since increased, but if it be set down at fifty 
miles, it will require a century to carry this centre five 
hundred miles west of Washington, or as far as the city 
of Nashville, Tennessee." I state this fact for the benefit 
of crazy capital-movers who are in such haste to set the 
Capital of the Nation in the centre of the Continent. 

I have given but a few of the questions w T hich were 
discussed in the great debates which preceded the final lo- 
cating of the Capital on the banks of the Potomac. They 
are a portion of its history, and deeply interesting in their 
bearing on the present and future of the Capital city. 

The long strife ended in the amendatory proclamation 
of President Washington, done at Georgetown the 30th 
day of March, in the year of our Lord 1791, and of the 
independence of the United States the fifteenth, which 
concluded with these words: "I do accordingly direct 
the Commissioners named under the authority of the 
said first mentioned act of Congress to proceed forthwith 
to have the said four lines run, and by proper metes and 
bounds defined and limited, and thereof to make due re- 
port under their hands and seals ; and the territory so to 
be located, defined and limited shall be the whole terri- 
tory accepted by the said act of Congress as the district 
for the permanent seat of the government of the United 



GENEEAL WASHINGTON AND DAVY BUENS. 35 

States." Maryland had ceded of her land ten miles square 
for the future Capital. Nothing seemed easier than for 
these three august commissioners, backed by the power- 
ful Congress, to go and take it. But it was not so easy 
to be done. In addition to the State of Maryland the 
land belonged to land-holders, each one of whom was a 
lord on his own domain. Some of these held land pa- 
tents still extant, dating back to 1663, and 1681. These 
lords of the manor were not willing to be disturbed even 
for the sake of a future Capital, and displayed all the iras- 
cibility and tenacity regarding price which characterize 
land-holders of the present day. If we may judge from 
results and the voluminous correspondence concerning 
it, left by George "Washington, the three commissioners 
who were to act for the government did not "get on" 
very well with the pugnacious planters who were ready 
to fight for their acres — and that the greater part of the 
negotiating for the new city finally fell to the lot of the 
great Executive. One of the richest and most famous 
of these land-owners was David Burns. He owned an 
immense tract of land south of where the president's 
house now stands, extending as far as the Patent Office 
called in the land patent of 1681 which granted it, "the 
Widow's Mite, lyeing on the east side of the Anacostin 
River, on the north side of a branch or inlett in the said 
river, called Tyber." This " Widow's Mite " contained six 
hundred acres or more, and David Burns was in no wise 
willing to part with any portion of it. Although it laid 
within the territory of Columbia, ceded by the act of 
Maryland for the future Capital, no less a personage than 
the President of the United States could move one whit 
David Burns, and even the President found it to be no 



36 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

easy matter to bring the Scotchman to terms. More 
than once in his letters he alludes to him as " the obsti- 
nate Mr. Burns," and it is told that upon one occasion 
when the President was dwelling upon the advantage 
that the sale of his lands would bring, the planter, testy 
Davy, exclaimed : " I suppose you think people here 
are going to take every grist that comes from you as 
pure grain, but what would you have been if you hadn't 
married the widow Oustis." $>■ 

After many interviews and arguments even the pa- 
tience of "Washington finally gave out and he said: 
" Mr. Burns, I have been authorized to select the loca- 
tion of the National Capital. I have selected your form 
as a part of it, and the government will take it at all 
events. I trust you will, under these circumstances, 
enter into an amicable arrangement." 

Seeing that further resistance was useless, the shrewd 
Scotchman thought that by a final graceful surrender he 
might secure more favorable terms, thus, when the Presi- 
dent once more asked : " On what terms will you sur- 
render your plantation?" Said humble Davy: " Any 
that your Excellency may choose to name." The deed 
conveying the land of David Burns to the commissioners 
in trust, is the first on record in the city of Washington. 
This sale secured to David Burns and his descendants an 
immense fortune. The deed provided that the streets of 
the new city should be so laid out as not to interfere with 
the cottage of David Burns, jl That cottage still stands in 
famous "Mansion Square," and the reader will find its 
story further on in the chapter devoted to the Old Homes 
and Haunts of Washington. The other original owners of 
the soil on which the city of Washington was built were 



THE NEW CAPITAL LIMITS. 37 

Notley Young, who owned a fine old brick mansion near 
the present steamboat landing, and Daniel Carroll, whose 
spacious abode known as the Duddington House, still 
stands on New Jersey Avenue, a little south-east of the 
Capitol. On the 31st of May, Washington wrote to Jef- 
ferson from Mount Vernon, announcing the conclusion of 
his negotiations in this wise — the owners conveyed all 
their interest to the United States on consideration that 
when the whole should be surveyed and laid off as a 
city the original proprietors should retain every other 
lot. The remaining lots to be sold by the government 
from time to time and the proceeds to be applied toward 
the improvement of the place. The land comprised within 
this agreement contains over seventy-one hundred acres. 
The city extends from north-west to south-east about four 
miles and a half, and from east to south-west about two 
miles and a half. Its circumference is fourteen miles, 
the aggregate length of the streets is one hundred and 
ninety-nine miles, and of the avenues sixty-five miles. 
The avenues, streets and open spaces contain three thou- 
sand six hundred and four acres, and the public reserva- 
tions exclusive of reservations since disposed of for pri- 
vate purposes, five hundred and thirteen acres. The 
whole area of the squares of the city amounts to one 
hundred and thirty-one million, six hundred and eighty- 
four thousand, one hundred and seventy-six square feet, 
or three thousand and sixteen acres. Fifteen hundred 
and eight acres were reserved for the use of the United 
States. 



CHAPTER III. 
THE WORK BEGUN IN EARNEST. 

Washington's Faith in the Future — Mr. Sparks is " inclined to think " — A 
Slight Miscalculation — Theoretical Spartans — Clinging to Old World 
Glories — Jefferson Acts the Critic — He Communicates Some Ideas — 
Models of Antiquity — Babylon Revived — Difficulty in Satisfying a 
Frenchman's Soul — The Man who Planned the Capital — Who was 
L'Enfant? — His Troubles — His Dismissal — His Personal Appearance, 
Old Age, Death and Burial-Place — His Successor — The French Genius 
" Proceeded " — The New City of Washington — A Magnificent Plan — All 
About the City — The Major not Appreciated — "Getting on Badly" — L'En- 
fant Worries Washington — A Record which Can Never Perish — An Over- 
paid Quaker — Jefferson Expresses his Sentiments — A Sable Franklin — 
The Negro Engineer, Benjamin Bancker — A Chance for a Monument. 

THE majority of Congress were opposed to a commer- 
cial Capital, yet there are many proofs extant that 
to the hour of his death George Washington cherished 
the hope that the new city of his love would be not 
only the capital of the nation, but a great commercial 
metropolis of the world. Mr. Jared Sparks, the histo- 
rian, in a private letter says: "I am inclined to think 
that Washington's anticipations were more sanguine than 
events have justified. He early entertained very large 
and just ideas of the vast resources of the West, and of 
the commercial intercourse that must spring up between 
that region and the Atlantic coast, and he was wont to 
regard the central position of the Potomac as affording 
the most direct and easy channel of communication. 



Washington's faith m its future. 39 

Steamboats and railroads have since changed the face of 
the world, and have set at defiance all the calculations 
founded on the old order of things ; and especially have 
they operated on the destiny of the West and our entire 
system of internal commerce, in a manner that could not 
possibly have been foreseen in the life-time of Washing- 
ton." Throughout the correspondence of Washington 
are scattered constant allusions to the future niascnifi- 
cence of the Federal City, the name by which he loved 
to call the city of his heart, allusions which show that 
his faith in its great destiny never faltered. In a letter 
to his neighbor, Mrs. Fairfax, then in England, he said: 
"A century hence, if this country keejDS united, it will 
produce a city, though not as large as London, yet of a 
magnitude inferior to few others in Europe." At that 
time, after a growth of centuries, London contained eight 
hundred thousand inhabitants. Three-fourths of Wash- 
ington's predicted century have expired, and the city of 
Washington now numbers one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand people. 

The founders of the Capital were all very republican 
in theory, and all very aristocratic in practice. In speech 
they proposed to build a sort of Spartan capital, fit for a 
Spartan republic ; in fact, they proceeded to build one 
modeled after the most magnificent cities of Europe. 
European by descent and education, many of them allied 
to the oldest and proudest families of the Old World, 
every idea of culture, of art, and magnificence had come 
to them as part of their European inheritance, and we 
see its result in every thing that they did or proposed to 
do for the new Capital, which they so zealously began to 
build in the woods. The art-connoisseur of the day was 



40 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Jefferson. He knew Europe, not only by family tradi- 
tion but by sight. Next to Washington he took the 
deepest personal interest in the projected Capital. Of 
this interest we find continual proof in his letters, also of 
the fact that his taste had much to do with the plan and 
architecture of the coming city. In a letter to Major 
L'Enfant, the first engineer of the Capital, dated Phila- 
delphia, April 10, 1791, he wrote : "In compliance with 
your request, I have examined my papers and found the 
plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Carisruhe, Amsterdam, 
Strasburg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyons, Montpelier, 
Marseilles, Turin, and Milan, which I send in a roll by 
post. They are on large and accurate scales, having 
been procured by me while in those respective cities my- 
self. . ; . . Having communicated to the President be- 
fore he went away, such general ideas on the subject of the 
town as occurred to me, I have no doubt in explaining 
himself to you on the subject, he has interwoven with his 
own ideas such of mine as he approved When- 
ever it is proposed to present plans for the Capital, I 
should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of 
antiquity, which have had the approbation of thousands 
of years ; and for the president's house I should prefer 
the celebrated fronts of modern buildings, which have 
already received the approbation of good judges. Such 
are Galerie clu Louise, the Gardes Meubles, and two 
fronts of the Hotel de Salm." On the same day he 
writes to Washington: "I received last night from 
Major L'Enfant a request to furnish any plans of towns 
I could for examination. I accordingly send him by this 
post, plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main, etc., which I pro- 
cured while in those towns respectively. They are none 



THE MAN WHO PLANNED THE CAPITAL. 41 

of them, however, comparable to the old Babylon revived 
in Philadelphia and exemplified." But these two fathers 
of their country, as time proved, "did not know their 
man." Had they done so, they would have known in 
advance that a mercurial Frenchman would never at- 
tempt to satisfy his soul with acute angles of old Baby- 
lon revived, through the arid and level lengths of Phil- 
adelphia. 

The man who planned the Capital of the United States 
not for the present but for all time, was Peter Charles 
L'Enfant, born in France in 1755. He was a lieutenant 
in the French provincial forces, and with others of his 
countrymen was early drawn to these shores, by the mag- 
netism of a new people, and the promise of a new land. 
He offered his services to the revolutionary army as an en- 
gineer, in 1777, and was appointed captain of engineers 
February 18, 1778. After being wounded at the siege of 
Savannah, he was promoted to major of engineers, and 
served near the person of Washington. Probably at that 
time there was no man in America who possessed so much 
genius and art-culture in the same directions as Major 
L'Enfant. In a crude land, where nearly every arti- 
san had to be imported from foreign shores, the chief 
designer and architect surely would have to be. Thus 
we may conclude at the beginning, it seemed a lucky 
circumstance to find an engineer for the new city on the 
spot. 

The first public communication extant concerning the 
laying out of the city of Washington is from the pen of 
General Washington, dated March 11, 1791. In a letter 
dated April 30, 1791, he first called it the Federal City. 
Four months later, without his knowledge, it received 



42 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

its present name in a letter from the first commissioners, 
Messrs. Johnson, Stuart, and Carroll, which bears the 
date of Georgetown, September 9, 1791, to Major L'En- 
fant, which informs that gentleman that they have 
agreed that the federal district shall be called The Ter- 
ritory of Columbia, (its present title,) and the federal 
city the city of Washington, directing him to entitle 
his map accordingly. 

In March, 1791, we find Jefferson addressing Major 
L'Enfant in these words: "You are desired to proceed 
to Georgetown, where you will find Mr. Ellicott em- 
ployed in making a survey and map of the federal 
territory. The special object of asking jowc aid is to 
have the drawings of the particular grounds most likely 
to be approved for the site of the federal grounds and 
buildings." 

The French genius " proceeded," and behold the result, 
the city of "magnificent distances," and from the begin- 
ning of magnificent intentions, — intentions which almost 

CO 7 

to the present hour, have called forth only ridicule — be- 
cause in the slow mills of time their fulfillment has been 
so long delayed. As Thomas Jefferson wanted the chess- 
board squares and angles of Philadelphia, L'Enfant used 
them for the base of the new city, but his genius avenged 
itself for this outrage on its taste by transversing them 
with sixteen magnificent avenues, which from that day 
to this have proved the confusion and the glory of the 
city. French instinct diamonded the squares of Phila- 
delphia with the broad corsos of Versailles, as Major 
L'Enfant's map said, "to preserve through the whole a 
reciprocity of sight at the same time." 

A copy of the Gazette of the United States, published 



A nation's capital on papek. 43 

in Philadelphia, January 4, 1792, gives us the original 
magnificent intentions of the first draughtsman of the 
new city of Washington. 

The following description is annexed to the plan of the city 
of Washington, in the District of Columbia, as sent to Con- 
gress by the President some days ago : 

PLAN OF THE CITY INTENDED AS THE PERMANENT SEAT OF THE GOV- 
ERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PROJECTED AGREEABLY TO THE 
DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN PURSU- 
ANCE OF AN ACT OF CONGRESS, PASSED ON THE 16TH OF JULY, 
1790, " ESTABLISHING A PERMANENT SEAT ON THE BANKS OF THE 

POTOMACK." 

BY PETER CHAKLES L'EHFAKI. 

OBSERVATIONS EXPLANATORY OF THE PLAN. 

I. The positions of the different grand edifices, and for the 
several grand squares or areas of different shapes as they are 
laid down, were first determined on the most advantageous 
ground, commanding the most extensive prospects, and the 
better susceptible of such improvements as the various interests 
of the several objects may require. 

II. Lines or avenues of direct communication have been de- 
vised to connect the separate and most distant objects with the 
principals, and to preserve throughout the whole a reciprocity 
of sight at the same time. Attention has been paid to the pass- 
ing of those leading avenues over the most favorable ground for 
prospect and convenience. 

III. North and south lines, intersected by others running 
due east and west, make the distribution of the city into streets, 
squares, &c, and those lines have been so combined as to meet 
at certain points with those diverging avenues so as to form on 
the spaces " first determined," the different squares or areas 
which are all proportioned in magnitude to the number of ave- 
nues leading to them. 



44 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

ME. ELLICOTT "DOES BUSINESS." 

Every grand transverse avenue, and every principal divergent 
one, such as the communication from the President's house to 
the Congress house, &c, are 160 feet in breadth and thus 
divided : 

Ten feet for pavement on each side, is 20 feet , 

Thirty feet of gravel walk, planted with trees on each 

side, 60 feet 

Eighty feet in the middle for carriages, 80 feet 

160 feet 

The other streets are of the following dimensions, viz. : 

Those leading to the public buildings or markets, . . 130 
Others, 110-90 

In order to execute the above plan, Mr. Ellicott drew a true 
meridian line by celestial observation, which passes through 
area intended for the Congress house. This line he crossed by 
another due east and west, and which passes through the same 
area. The lines were accurately measured, and made the basis 
on which the whole plan was executed. He ran all the lines by 
a transit instrument, and determined the acute angles by actual 
measurement, and left nothing to the uncertainty of the compass. 

EEFERENCES. 

A. The equestrian figure of George Washington, a monu- 
ment voted in 1783 by the late Continental Congress. 

B. An historic column — also intended for a mile or itinerary 
column, from whose station, (at a mile from the Federal House,) 
all distances and places through the Continent are to be cal- 
culated. 

C. A Naval itinerary column proposed to be erected to cele- 
brate the first rise of a navy, and to stand a ready monument to 
perpetuate its progress and achievements. 



A MAGNIFICENT PLAN. 45 

D. A church intended for national purposes, such as public 
prayers, thanksgivings, funeral orations, &c, and assigned to 
the special use of no particular sect or denomination, but equally 
open to all. It will likewise be a proper shelter for such monu- 
ments as were voted by the late Continental Congress for those 
heroes who fell in the cause of liberty, and for such others as 
may hereafter be decreed by the voice of a grateful nation. 

E. E. E. E. E. Five grand fountains intended with a con- 
stant spout of water. 

N. B. There are within the limits of the springs twenty-five 
good springs of excellent water abundantly supplied in the dri- 
est seasons of the year. 

F. A grand cascade formed of the waters of the sources of 
the Tiber. 

G. G. Public walk, being a square of 1,200 feet, through 
which carriages may ascend to the upper square of the Federal 
House. 

H. A grand avenue, 400 feet in breadth and about a mile in 
length, bordered with gardens ending in a slope from the house 
on each side ; this avenue leads to the monument A, and con- 
nects the Congress garden with the 

I. President's park and the 

K. Well improved field, being a part of the walk from the 
President's House of about 1,800 feet in breadth and three- 
fourths of a mile in length. Every lot deep colored red, with 
green plats, designating some of the situations which command 
the most agreeable prospects, and which are best calculated for 
spacious houses and gardens, such as may accommodate foreign 
ministers, &c. 

L. Around this square and along the 

M. Avenue from the two bridges to the Federal House, the 
pavements on each side will pass under an arched way, under 
whose cover shops will be most conveniently and agreeably 
situated. This street is 106 feet in breadth, and a mile long. 

The fifteen squares colored yellow are proposed to be divided 
among the several States of the Union, for each of them to im- 



46 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

prove, or subscribe a sum additional to the value of the land for 
that purpose, and the improvements around the squares to be 
completed in a limited time. The centre of each square will 
admit of statues, columns, obelisks, or any other ornaments, 
such as the different States may choose to erect, to perpetuate 
not only the memory of such individuals whose councils or mili- 
tary achievements were conspicuous in giving liberty and inde- 
pendence to this country, but those whose usefulness hath 
rendered them worthy of imitation, to invite the youth of suc- 
ceeding generations to tread in the paths of those sages or he- 
roes whom their country have thought proper to celebrate. 

The situation of those squares is such that they are most 
advantageously seen from each other, and as equally distributed 
over the whole city district, and connected by spacious avenues 
round the grand federal improvements and as contiguous to 
them, and at the same time as equally distant from each other 
as circumstances would admit. The settlements round these 
squares must soon become connected. The mode of taking 
possession of and improving the whole district at first must 
leave to posterity a grand idea of the patriotic interest which 
promoted it. 

Two months after the publication of those magnificent 
designs for posterity, Major L'Enfant was dismissed from 
his exalted place. He "was a Frenchman and a genius. 
The patrons of the new Capital were not geniuses, and 
not Frenchmen, reasons sufficient why they should not 
and did not "get on" long in peace together. Without 
doubt the Commissioners were provincial, and limited in 
their ideas of art and of expenditure ; with their colonial 
experience they could scarcely be otherwise; while L'En- 
fant was metropolitan, splendid, and willful, in his ways 
as well as in his designs. Hampered, held back, he yet 
"builded better than he knew," builded for posterity. 
The executor and the designer seldom counterpart each 



DISMISSING A MAN OF GENIUS. 47 

other. L'Enfant worried Washington, as a letter from 
the latter, written in the autumn of 1791, plainly shows. 
He says: "It is much to be regretted that men who 
possess talents which fit them for peculiar purposes 
should almost invariably be under the influence of an 

untoward disposition I have thought that for 

such employment as he is now engaged in for prose- 
cuting public works and carrying them into effect, Ma- 
jor L'Enfant was better qualified than any one who 
has come within my knowledge in this country, or in- 
deed in any other. I had no doubt at the same time 
that this was the light in which he considered himself." 
At least, L'Enfant was so fond of his new "plan" that he 
would not give it up to the Commissioners to be used as 
an inducement for buying city lots, even at the command 
of the President, giving as a reason that if it was open 
to buyers, speculators would build up his beloved avenues 
(which he intended, in time, should outrival Versailles) 
with squatter's huts — -just as they afterwards did. Then 
Duddington House, the abode of Daniel Carroll, was in 
the way of one of his triumphal avenues, and he ordered 
it torn down without 'leave or license, to the rage of its 
owner and the indignation of the Commissioners. Dud- 
dington House was rebuilt by order of the government in 
another place, and stands to-day a relic of the past amid its 
old forest trees on Capitol Hill. Nevertheless its first de- 
molition was held as one of the sins of the uncontrollable 
L'Enfant, who was summarily discharged March 6, 1792. 
His dismissal was thus announced by Jefferson in a letter 
to one of the Commissioners : "It having been found im- 
practicable to employ Major L'Enfant about the Federal 
City in that degree of subordination which was lawful 



48 TEN" YEAES IN WASHINGTON". 

and proper, he has been notified that his services are at 
an end. It is now proper that he should receive the re- 
ward of his past services, and the wish that he should 
have no just cause of discontent suggests that it should 
be liberal. The President thinks of $2,500, or $3,000, 
but leaves the determination to you." Jefferson wrote 
in the same letter : " The enemies of the enterprise will 
take the advantage of the retirement of L'Enfant to 
trumpet the whole as an abortion." But L'Enfant lived 
and died within sight of the dawning city of his love 
which he had himself created — and never wrought it, or 
its projectors any harm through all the days of his life. 
He was loyal to his adopted government, but to his last 
breath clung to every atom of his personal claim upon it, 
as pugnaciously as he did to his maps, when commanded to 
give them up. He lived without honor, and died without 
fame. Time will vindicate one and perpetuate the other 
in one of the most magnificent capitals of earth. His 
living picture lingers still with more than one old inhab- 
itant. One tells of him in an unchangeable "green sur- 
tout, walking across the commons and fields, followed by 
half-a-dozen hunting clogs." Also, of reporting to him at 
Fort Washington in 1814 to do duty, and of first receiv- 
ing a glass of wine from the old soldier-architect and en- 
gineer before he told him what to do. Mr. Corcoran, the 
banker, tells how L'Enfant looked in his latter days : " a 
rather seedy, stylish old man, with a long blue or green 
coat buttoned up to his throat, and a bell-crowned hat ; 
a little moody and lonely, like one wronged." 

He lived for many years on the Digges' farm, the estate 
now owned by George Riggs, the banker, situated about 
eight miles from Washington. He was buried in the 



A FIGHTING QUAKER SUCCEEDS. 49 

family burial-ground, in the Digges' garden. When the 
Digges family were disinterred, his dust was left nearly 
alone. There it lies to-clay, and the perpetually growing 
splendor of the ruling city which he planned, is his only 
monument. 

He was succeeded by Andrew Ellicott, a practical en- 
gineer, born in Buck's County, Pennsylvania. He was 
called a man of "uncommon talent" and "placid tem- 
per." Neither saved him from conflicts, (though of a 
milder type than L'Enfant's,) with the Commissioners. 
A Quaker, he yet commanded a battalion of militia in 
the Revolution, and " was thirty-seven years of age when 
he rode out with Washington to survey the embryo city." 
He finished, (with certain modifications,) the work which 
L'Enfant began. For this he received the stupendous 
sum of $5.00 per day which, with "expenses," Jefferson 
thought to be altogether too much. In his letter to the 
Commissioners dismissing L'Enfant, he says : " Ellicott is 
to go on to finish laying off the plan on the ground, and 
surveying and plotting the district. I have remonstrated 
with him on the excess of five dollars a day and his ex- 
penses, and he has proposed striking off the latter." 

After Ellicott concluded laying out the Capital, he be- 
came Surveyor-General of the United States; laid out 
the towns of Erie, Warren and Franklin, in Pennsylva- 
nia, and built Fort Erie. He defined the boundary divid- 
ing the Republic from the Spanish Possessions ; became 
Secretary of the Pennsylvania Land Office, and in 1812 
Professor of Mathematics at West Point, where he died 
August, 1820, aged 66. 

EUicott's most remarkable assistant was Benjamin 
Bancker, a negro. He was, I believe, the first of his 
\ 



50 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

race to distinguish himself in the new Republic. He was 
born with a genius for mathematics and the exact sci- 
ences, and at an early age was the author of an Almanac, 
which attracted the attention and commanded the praise 
of Thomas Jefferson. When he came to "run the lines" 
of the future Capital, he was sixty years of age. The 
caste of color could not have grown to its hight at that 
day, for the Commissioners invited him to an official seat 
with themselves, an honor which he declined. The pic- 
ture given us of him is that of a sable Franklin, large, 
noble, and venerable, with a dusky face, white hair, a 
drab coat of superfine broadcloth, and a Quaker hat. 
He was born and buried at Ellicott's Mills, where his 
grave is now unmarked. Here is a chance for the rising 
race to erect a monument to one of their own sons, who 
in the face of ignorance and bondage proved himself 
"every inch a man," in intellectual gifts equal to the 
best. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

OLD WASHINGTON. 

How the City was Built — "A Matter of Moonshine" — Calls for Paper — 
Besieging Congressmen — How they Raised the Money — The Government 
Requires Sponsors — Birth of the Nation's Capital — Seventy Years Ago 
in Washington — Graphic Picture of Early Times — A Much-Marrying 
City — Unwashed Virginian Belles — Stuck in the Mud — Extraordinary 
Religious Services. 

"TVTOTHING in the architecture of the city of Wash- 
J_l mgton calls forth more comment from strangers 
than the distance between the Capitol and the Executive 
Departments. John Randolph early called it "the city 
of magnificent distances," and it is still a chronic and 
fashionable complaint to decry the time and distance it 
takes to get any where. In the days of a single stage 
line on Pennsylvania Avenue, these were somewhat la- 
mentable. But five-minute cars abridge distances, and 
make them less in reality than even in the city of New 
York. It is a mile and a half from the northern end of 
the Navy-yard bridge to the Capitol, a mile and a half 
from the Capitol to the Executive Mansion, and a mile 
and a half from the Executive Mansion to the corner of 
Bridge and High Streets, Georgetown. We are con- 
stantly hearing exclamations of what a beautiful city 
Washington would be with the Capitol for the centre of 
a square formed by a chain of magnificent public build- 
ings. John Adams wanted the Departments around the 



52 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Capitol. George Washington but a short time before his 
death, gave in a letter the reasons for their present posi- 
tion. In going through his correspondence one finds that 
there is nothing, scarcely, in the past, present or future 
of its Capital, for which the Father of his Country has 
not left on record a wise, far-reaching reason. In this 
letter, he says : " Where or how the houses for the 
President, and the public offices may be fixed is to me, 
as an individual, a matter of moonshine. But the re- 
verse of the President's motive for placing the latter 
near the Capitol was my motive for fixing them by the 
former. The daily intercourse which the secretaries of 
departments must have w T ith the President would render 
a distant situation extremely inconvenient to them, and 
not much less so would one be close to the Capitol ; for 
it was the universal complaint of them all, that while 
the Legislature was in session, they could do little or no 
business, so much were they interrupted by the individual 
visits of members in office hours, and by calls for paper. 
Many of them have disclosed to me that they have been 
obliged often to go home and deny themselves in order 
to transact the current business." The denizen of the 
present time, who knows the Secretaries' dread of the 
average besieging Congressman, will smile to find that 
the dread was as potent in t]j3 era of George Washing- 
ton as it is to-day. A more conclusive reason could not 
be given why Capitol and Departments should be a 
mile apart. The newspapers of that day were filled 
w r ith long articles on the laying out of the Capital city. 
We find in a copy of The Philadetyhia Herald of January 
4, 1795, after a discussion of the Mall — the yet-to-be gar- 
den extending from the Capitol to the President's house — 



HOW THEY RAISED THE FUNDS. 53 

the following far-sighted remarks on the creation of the 
Capital. It says : " To found a city, for the purpose of 
making it the depository of the acts of the Union, and 
the sanctuary of the laws which must one clay rule all 
North America, is a grand and comprehensive idea, which 
has already become, with propriety, the object of public 
respect. The city of Washington, considered under such 
important points of view, could not be calculated on a 
small scale ; its extent, the disposition of its avenues and 
public squares should all correspond with the magnitude 
of the objects for which it was intended. And we need 
only cast our eyes upon the situation and plan of the 
city to recognize in them the comprehensive genius of 
the President, to whom the direction of the business has 
been committed by Congress." 

The letters of Washington are full of allusions to the 
annoyance and difficulty attending the raising of suffi- 
cient money to make the Capitol and other public build- 
ings tenantable by the time specified, 1800. He seemed 
to regard the prompt completion of the Capitol as an 
event identical with the perpetual establishment of the 
government at Washington. Virginia had made a dona- 
tion of $120,000, and Maryland one of $72,000; these 
were now exhausted. After various efforts to raise 
money by the forced salen^of public lots, and after abort- 
ive attempts to borrow money, at home and abroad, on 
the credit of these lots, amidst general embarrassments, 
while Congress withheld any aid whatever, the urgency 
appeared to the President so great as to induce him to 
make a personal application to the State of Maryland for a 
loan, which was successful, and the deplorable credit of the 
government at that time is exhibited in the fact that the 



54 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

State called upon the credit of the Commissioners as an 
additional guarantee for the re-payment of the amount, 
$100,000, to which Washington alludes as follows: "The 
necessity of the case justified the obtaining it on almost 
any terms ; and the zeal of the Commissioners in making 
themselves liable for the amount, as it could not be had 
without, cannot fail of approbation. At the same time I 
must confess the application has a very singular appear- 
ance, and will not, I should suppose, be very grateful to 
the feelings of Congress." 

I have cited but a few of the tribulations through 
which the Capital of the nation was born. Not only 
was the growth of the public buildings hindered through 
lack of money, but also through the "jealousies and 
bickerings" of those who should have helped to build 
them. Human nature, in the aggregate, was just as in- 
harmonious and hard to manage then as now. The Com- 
missioners did not always agree. Artisans, imported from 
foreign lands, made alone an element of discord, one which 
Washington dreaded and deprecated. He went clown 
with his beloved Capital into the Egypt of its building. 
He led with a patience and wisdom undreamed of and 
unappreciated in this generation, the straggling and dis- 
cordant forces of the Republic from oppression to free- 
dom, from chaos to achievement — he came in sight of the 
promised land of fruition and prosperity, but he did not 
enter it, this father and prophet of the people ! George 
Washington died in December, 1799. 

The city of Washington was officially occupied in 
June, 1800. 

The only adequate impression of what the Capital was 
at the time of its first occupancy, we must receive from 



A BATHER PECULIAR PICTURE. 55 

those who beheld it with living eyes. Fortunately sev- 
eral have left graphic pictures of the appearance which 
the city presented at that time. President John Adams 
took possession of the unfinished Executive Mansion in 
November, 1800. During the month Mrs, Adams wrote 
to her daughter, Mrs. Smith, as follows: "I arrived 
here on Sunday last, and without meeting with any ac- 
cident worth noticing, except losing ourselves when we 
left Baltimore, and going eight or nine miles on the 
Frederic road, by which means we were obliged to go 
the other eight through the woods, where we wandered 

for two hours without finding guide or path But 

woods are all you see from Baltimore till you reach the 
city, which is only so in name. Here and there is a 
small cot, without a glass window, interspersed amongst 
the forests, through which you travel miles without see- 
ing any human being. In the city there are buildings 
enough, if they were compact and finished, to accommo- 
date Congress and those attached to it; but as they are, 
and scattered as they are, I see no great comfort for them. 

If the twelve years in which this place has been 

considered as the future seat of government had been im- 
proved as they would have been in New England, very 
many of the present inconveniences would have been re- 
moved. It is a beautiful spot, capable of any improve- 
ment, and the more I view it the more I am delighted 
with it." 

Hon. John Cotton Smith, of Connecticut, a distin- 
guished member of Congress, of the Federal school of 
politics, also gives his picture of Washington in 1800: 
"Our approach to the city was accompanied with sensa- 
tions not easily described. One wing of the Capitol only 



56 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

had been erected, which, with the President's house, a 
mile distant from it, both constructed with white sand- 
stone, were shining objects in dismal contrast with the 
scene around them. Instead of recognizing the avenues 
and streets portrayed on the plan of the city, not one 
was visible, unless we except a road, with two buildings 
on each side of it, called the New Jersey Avenue. The 
Pennsylvania, leading, as laid down on paper, from the 
Capitol to the presidential mansion, was then nearly the 
whole distance a deep morass, covered with alder bushes 
which were cut through the width of the intended ave- 
nue during the then ensuing winter. Between the Pres- 
ident's house and Georgetown a block of houses had been 
erected, which then bore and may still bear, the name of 
the six buildings. There were also other blocks, consist- 
ing of two or three dwelling-houses, in different direc- 
tions, and now and then an insulated wooden habitation, 
the intervening spaces, and indeed the surface of the city 
generally, being covered with shrub-oak bushes on the 
higher grounds, and on the marshy soil either trees or 
some sort of shrubbery. Nor was the desolate aspect of 
the place a little augmented by a number of unfinished 
edifices at Greenleaf's Point, and on an eminence a short 
distance from it, commenced by an individual whose 
name they bore, but the state of whose funds compelled 
him to abandon them, not only unfinished, but in a ruin- 
ous condition. There appeared to be but two really com- 
fortable habitations in all respects, within the bounds of 
the city, one of which belonged to Dudley Carroll, Esq., 
and the other to Notley Young, who were the former 
proprietors of a large proportion of the land appropri- 
ated to the city, but who reserved for their own accom- 



ME. PEACOCK'S DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. 57 

modation ground sufficient for gardens and other useful 
appurtenances. The roads in every direction were muddy 
and unimproved. A sidewalk was attempted in one in- 
stance by a covering formed of the chips of the stones 
which had been hewn for the Capitol. It extended but a 
little way and was of little value, for in dry weather the 
sharp fragments cut our shoes, and in wet weather covered 
them with white mortar, in short, it was a "new settle- 
ment." The houses, with one or two exceptions, had been 
very recently erected, and the operation greatly hurried 
in view of the approaching transfer of the national gov- 
ernment. A laudable desire was manifested by what few 
citizens and residents there were, to render our condition 
as pleasant as circumstances would permit. One of the 
blocks of buildings already mentioned was situated on the 
east side of what was intended for the Capitol square, and 
being chiefly occupied by an extensive and well-kept ho- 
tel, accommodated a goodly number of the members. 
Our little party took lodgings with a Mr. Peacock, in 
one of the houses on New Jersey Avenue, with the ad- 
dition of Senators Tracy of Connecticut, and Chipman 
and Paine of Vermont, and Representatives Thomas of 
Maryland, and Dana, Edmond and Griswold of Connec- 
ticut. Speaker Sedgwick was allowed a room to himself 
— the rest of us in pairs. To my excellent friend Dav- 
enport, and myself, was allotted a spacious and decently 
furnished apartment with separate beds, on the lower 
floor. Our diet was varied, but always substantial, 
and we were attended by active and faithful servants. 
A large proportion of the Southern members took lodg- 
ings at Georgetown, which, though of a superior order, 
were three miles distant from the Capitol, and of course 



58 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

rendered the daily employment of hackney coaches in- 
dispensable. 

Notwithstanding the unfavorable aspect which Wash- 
ington presented on our arrival, I can not sufficiently 
express my admiration of its local position. From the 
Capitol you have a distinct view of its fine undulating 
surface, situated at the confluence of the Potomac and its 
Eastern Branch, the wide expanse of that majestic river 
to the bend at Mount Vernon, the cities of Alexandria 
and Georgetown, and the cultivated fields and blue hills 
of Maryland and Virginia on either side of the river, the 
whole constituting a prospect of surpassing beauty and 
grandeur. The city has also the inestimable advantage 
of delightful water, in many instances flowing from co- 
pious springs, and always attainable by digging to a 
moderate depth, to which may be added the singular 
fact that such is the due admixture of loam and clay in 
the soil of a great portion of the city that a house may 
be built of brick made of the earth dug from the cellar, 
hence it was not unusual to see the remains of a brick- 
kiln near the newly-erected dwelling-house or other edi- 
fice. In short, when we consider not only these advan- 
tages, but what, in a national point of view is of superior 
importance, the location on a fine navigable river, acces- 
sible to the whole maritime frontier of the United States, 
and yet easily rendered defensible against foreign inva- 
sion, — and that by the facilities of inter-population of 
the Western States, and indeed of the whole nation, with 
less inconvenience than any other conceivable situation, — 
we must acknowledge that its selection by Washington 
as the permanent seat of the federal government, affords 
a striking exhibition of the discernment, wisdom and fore- 



PRETTY GIRLS OF SEVENTY YEARS AGO. 59 

cast which characterized that illustrious man. Under this 
impression, whenever, during the six years of my connec- 
tion with Congress, the question of removing the seat of 
government to some other place was agitated — and the 
proposition was frequently made — I stood almost alone, 
as a northern man, in giving my vote in the negative." 

Sir Augustus Foster, secretary of legation to the Brit- 
ish minister at Washington, during the years 1804-6, 
has left an amusing account on record both of the ap- 
pearance of the Capital and the state of its society 
during the administration of President Jefferson : " The 
Spanish envoy, De Caso Yrujo, told Sir Augustus it was 
difficult to procure a decent dinner in the new Capital 
without sending the distance of sixty miles for its mate- 
rials. Things had mended somewhat before the arrival 
of Sir Augustus, but he still found enough to surprise 
and bewilder him in the desolate vastness and mean ac- 
commodations of the unshaped metropolis." 

Of private citizens Sir Augustus says: "Very few 
private gentlemen have their houses in Washington. I 
only recollect three, Mr. Brent, Mr. Tayloe, and Mr. Car- 
roll." .... Most of the members of Congress, it is true, 
keep to their lodgings, but still there are a sufficient 
number of them who are sociable, or whose families 
come to the city for a season, and there is no want of 
handsome ladies for the balls, especially at Georgetown ; 
indeed, I never saw prettier girls anywhere. As there 
are but few of them, however, in proportion to the great 
number of men who frequent the places of amusement 
in the federal city, it is one of the most marrying places on 
the whole continent Meagre the march of intel- 
lect so much vaunted in the present century ; the literary 



60 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

education of these ladies is far from being worthy of the 
age of knowledge, and conversation is apt to flag, though 
a seat by the ladies is always much coveted. Dancing 
and music serve to eke out the time, but one got tired of 
hearing the same song everywhere, even when it was : 

" Just like love is yonder rose." 

" No matter how this was sung, the words alone were 
the man-traps ; the belle of the evening was declared to 
be just like both, and the people looked around as if the 
listener was expected to become on the instant very ten- 
der, and to propose Between the young ladies, 

who generally not only good looking, but good tempered, 
and if not well informed, capable of becoming so, and 
the ladies of a certain time of life, there is usually a wide 
gap in society, young married women being but seldom 
seen in the world ; as they approach, however, to middle 
age, they are apt to become romantic, those in particular 
who live in the country and have read novels fancying all 
manner of romantic things, and returning to the Capital 
determined to have an adventure before they again retire; 
or on doing some wondrous act which shall make them 
be talked about in all after time. Others I have known 
to contract an aversion to water, and as a substitute, cover 
their faces and bosoms with hair powder, in order to ren- 
der the skin pure and delicate. This was peculiarly the 
case with some Virginia damsels, who came to the halls 
at Washington, and who in consequence were hardly less 
tolerable than negroes. There were but few cases of this 
I must confess, though as regards the use of the powder, 
they were not so uncommon, and at my balls I, thought 
it advisable to put on the tables of the toilette room not 



a foreigner's picture. 61 

only rouge, but hair powder, as well as blue powder, 
which had some customers 

" In going to assemblies one had sometimes to drive 
three or four miles within the city bounds, and very often 
at the great risk of an overthrow, or of being what is 

termed i stalled,' or stuck in the mud Cards were 

a great resource during the evening, and gaming was all 
the fashion, at brag especially, for the men who frequented 
society were chiefly fiom Virginia or the Western States, 
and were very fond of this the worst gambling of all games, 
as being one of countenance as well as of cards. Loo was 
the innocent diversion of the ladies, who when they looed 
pronounced the word in a very mincing manner 

" Church service can certainly never be called an amuse- 
ment ; but from the variety of persons who are allowed 
to preach in the House of Representatives, there was 
doubtless some alloy of curiosity in the motives which led 
one to go there. Though the regular Chaplain was a Pres- 
byterian, sometimes a Methodist, a minister of the Church 
of England, or a Quaker, or sometimes even a woman 
took the speaker's chair; and I don't think that there 
was much devotion among the majority. The New Eng- 
enders, generally speaking, are very religious; though 
there are many exceptions, I cannot say so much for the 
Marylanders, and still less for the Virginians." 

Notwithstanding the incongruous and somewhat dis- 
graceful picture which Sir Augustus paints of the Capital 
City of the new Republic, he goes on to say: "In spite 
of its inconveniences and desolate aspect, it was I think 
the most agreeable town to reside in for any length of 
time," which if true insures our pity for what the remain- 
der of our native land must have been. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NOBLEST WARD OF CONGRESS. 

A Ward of Congress — Expectations Disappointed — Funds Low and People 
Few — Slow Progress of the City — First Idea of a National University — 
A Question of Importance Discussed — Generous Proposition of George 
Washington — Faith Under Difficulties — Transplanting an Entire Col- 
lege — An Old Proposition in a New Shape — What Washington "Society" 
Lacks — The Lombardy Poplars Pefuse to Grow — Perils of the Way — A 
Long Plain of Mud — " The Forlornest City in Christendom " — Egyptian 
Dreariness — Incomplete and Desolate State of Affairs — The End of an 
Expensive Canal — The Water of Tiber Creek — American " Boys " on the 
March — Divided Allegiance of Old — The Stirring of a Nation's Heart — 
Ready to March to her Defense — A Personal Interest — - Patriotism 
Aroused — The First-born City of the Republic — Truly the Capital of 
the Nation. 

WASHINGTON was incorporated as a city by act of 
Congress, passed May 3, 1802. The city, planned 
solely as the National Capital, was laid out on a scale so 
grand and extensive that scanty municipal funds alone 
would never have been sufficient for its proper improve- 
ment. From the beginning it was the ward of Congress. 
Its magnificent avenues, squares and public buildings, 
could receive due decoration from no fund more scanty 
than a national appropriation. At first Congress appro- 
priated funds with much spirit and some liberality, but 
there were many reasons why its zeal and munificence 
waned together. At this day it has not fulfilled the most 
sanguine expectations of its founders. In Jefferson's 



GENEROUS PEOPOSAL OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 63 

time its population numbered but five thousand persons, 
and for forty years its increase of population only aver- 
aged about five hundred and fifty per annum. Many 
stately vessels sail down the Potomac to the Chesa- 
peake and the James and out to the ocean ; but the 
Potomac is far from being the highway of commerce. 
The wharves of Washington and Georgetown are empty 
compared with those of New York, or even of Balti- 
more. For generations there was neither commerce 
nor manufacture to induce men of capital to remove 
from large cities of active business to the new city in 
the wilderness, whose very life depended on the will 
of a majority of Congress. Washington's idea of the 
National Capital far outleaped his century. His vision 
of its future greatness comprehended all that the capital 
of a great nation should be. He foresaw it, not only as 
the seat of national commerce, but the seat of national 
learning. One of the dearest projects of his last days was 
the founding of a National University at the city of Wash- 
ington. The following references to this subject in a 
letter from him to the commissioners of the Federal dis- 
tricts, with an extract from his last will, but faintly ex- 
press the intense interest which he manifested in the 
National University, both in his daily life, and familiar 
correspondence : — 

"WASHINGTON TO COMMISSIONERS OF FEDERAL DISTRICTS. 

" The Federal city, from its centrality and the advantages which 
in other respects it must have over any other place in the United 
States, ought to be preferred as a proper site for such a Univer- 
sity. And if a plan can be adopted upon a scale as extensive 
as I have described, and the execution of it should commence 



64 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

under favorable auspices in a reasonable time, with a fair 
prospect of success, I will grant in perpetuity fifty shares in 
the navigation of the Potomac River toward the endowment 
of it." 

feom Washington's will. 

" I give and bequeath in perpetuity the fifty shares which I 
hold in the Potomac Company (under the aforesaid acts of the 
legislature of Virginia) toward the endowment of a University 
to be established within the limits of the District of Columbia, 
under the auspices of the general government, if that govern- 
ment should incline to extend a fostering hand toward it. And 
until such Seminary is established and the funds arising from 
these shares shall be needed for its support, my further will and 
desire is, that the profits arising therefrom whenever the divi- 
dends are made be laid out in purchasing stock in the Bank of 
Columbia, or some other bank at the discretion of my executors, 
or by the Treasurer of the United States for the time being, 
under the direction of Congress, providing that honorable body 
should patronize the measure; and the dividends proceeding 
from the purchase of such stock are to be vested in more stock, 
and so on, till a sum adequate to the accomplishment of the 
object be obtained, of which I have not the smallest doubt before 
many years pass away, even if no aid and encouragement is 
given by legislative authority, or from any other source." 

The correspondence of "Washington and Jefferson abound 
with consultations concerning this great National Univer- 
sity. During his stay in Europe, Jefferson had become 
personally conversant with its ancient seats of learning, 
and longed to see somewhat of the splendor of their cul- 
ture transferred to his own native land. So great was his 
zeal on this subject, both he and John Adams favored 
the plan at one time of transferring to this city the entire 
college of Geneva, professors, students, all. But George 



A LEARNED PROPOSITION. 65 

"Washington opposed the transplanting of an entire body 
of foreign scholars to the new Republic, almost as ear- 
nestly as he did that of a horde of foreign laborers to 
build the Capitol, he believing both to be inimical to the 
growth of republican principles and feelings in a newly 
created republic. 

Three-fourths of a century have passed since Washing- 
ton, Jefferson and Adams consulted together concerning 
the National University of the future. Alas ! it is still of 
the future. The dream of its fulfillment was dearer to 
the father of his country, probably, than to any other 
mortal. The explicit provision made for it in his will 
proves this. That bequest went finally, I believe, to a 
college in Virginia. Columbia College, feeble, small and 
old, is the nearest approach to the National University 
of which the National Capital can boast to-day. Strange 
after the lapse of nearly a century, the other evening the 
friends of this feeble and stunted college, including the 
President of the United States, high officials, learned pro- 
fessors, foreign ministers, and gentlemen of the press, 
assembled in Wormley's comfortable dining-room, and 
over an " epicurean banquet " discussed what Jefferson 
and Washington did in their letters — a National Univer- 
sity for the National Capital. The desire of Washington 
although not yet fulfilled, must in time become a reality. 
The National Capital, already the centre of fashion, and 
rapidly becoming the seat of National Science as well as 
of National Politics and Government, is the natural seat 
of National Learning. The educational element, the 
high-toned culture which always marks the mental and 
moral atmosphere surrounding a university is to-day the 
marked lack of what is termed " society in Washington." 



66 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

The United States Government is doing much for science. 
There is a greater number of persons actively devoted to 
scientific pursuits in the National Capital than in any other 
city of the Union. Washington is already the seat of 
more purely intellectual activity than any other Ameri- 
can city. The scientific library of the Smithsonian In- 
stitute is one of the best in the world. New departments 
of the Government devoted to Science are continually 
being established on sure and ever-spreading foundations. 
All these facts point to the final and crowning one — the 
University of the Nation at the National Capital. 

For a time, after the incorporation of the city, its foun- 
ders and patrons zealously pursued plans for its improve- 
ment. But failing funds, a weak municipality, and indif- 
ferent Congresses, did their work, and for many years 
" the city of magnificent distances " had little but those 
distances of which to boast. Jefferson had Pennsylvania 
avenue planted with double rows of Lombardy poplars 
from Executive Mansion to Capitol, in imitation of the 
walk and drive in Berlin known as Unter den Linden. 
But the tops of the poplars did not flourish, and the 
roots were troublesome, and in 1832 the hoped for 
arcade came to naught. In truth Pennsylvania avenue 
was one long plain of mud, punched with dangerous 
holes and seamed with deep ravines. The interlacing 
roots of the poplars made these holes and ravines the 
more dangerous, till an appropriation, during the admin- 
istration of Jackson, caused them to be dug up and the 
entire avenue to beNnacadamized, notwithstanding a large 
minority in Congress could find no authority in the Con- 
stitution for such an unprecedented provision for the pub- 
lic safety. Every Congress was packed with strict con- 



WONDEKFUL CHANGES. 67 

structionists and economists, who opposed every effort to 
improve the National Capital. Many, narrow, sectional 
and provincial, had no comprehension of the plan of a 
city founded to meet the wants of a great nation, rather 
than to suit the convenience of a meagre population. A 
city planned to become the magnificent Capital of a vast 
people could not fail through its very dimensions to be 
oppressive to its citizens, if the chief weight of its im- 
provement was laid upon their scanty resources. A 
National Capital could only be fitly built by the Nation. 
For many years the Congress of the United States refused 
to do this to any fit degree, and the result for more than 
one generation was the most forlorn city in Christendom. 
At a recent meeting of the friends of Columbia College 
Attorney General Williams stated that when he first 
visited Washington, in 1853, the " Egypt " of Indiana 
could not compare in dreariness and discomfort with the 
Capital of the Nation. 

In 1862 Washington was a third rate Southern city. 
Even its mansions were without modern improvements 
or conveniences, while the mass of its buildings were low, 
small and shabby in the extreme. The avenues, superb 
in length and breadth, in their proportions afforded a 
painful contrast to the hovels and sheds which often 
lined them on either side for miles. Scarcely a public 
building was finished. NoLgoddess of liberty held tablary 
guard over the dome of the Capitol." Scaffolds, engines 
and pulleys everywhere defaced its vast surfaces of gleam- 
ing marble. The northern wing of the Treasury building 
was not even begun. Where it now stands then stood 
the State departments, crowded, dingy and old. Even 
the southern wing of the Treasury was not completed as 



68 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

it was begun. Iron spikes and saucers on its western 
side had been used to conclude the beautiful Greek orna- 
mentation begun with the building. All public offices, 
magnificent in conception, seemed to be in a state of 
crude incompleteness. Everything worth looking at 
seemed unfinished. Everything finished looked as if it 
should have been destroyed generations before. Even 
Pennsylvania avenue, the grand thoroughfare of the Cap- 
ital, was lined with little two and three story shops, which 
in architectural comeliness have no comparison with their 
ilk of the Bowery, New York. Not a street car ran in the 
city. A few straggling omnibuses and helter-skelter hacks 
were the only public conveyances to bear members of Con- 
gress to and fro between the Capitol and their remote lodg- 
ings. In spring and autumn the entire west end of the city 
was one vast slough of impassible mud. One would have 
to walk many blocks before he found it possible to cross a 
single street, and that often one of the most fashionable 
of the city. " The water of Tiber Creek," which in the 
magnificent intentions of the founders of the city were 
" to be carried to the top of Congress House, to fall in a 
cascade of twenty feet in height and fifty in breadth, and 
thence to run in three falls through the gardens into the 
grand canal," instead stretched in ignominious stagnation 
across the city, oozing at last through green scum 
and slime into the still more ignominious canal, which 
stood an open sewer and cess-pool, the receptacle of 
all abominations, the pest-breeder and disgrace of the 
city. Toward the construction of this canal the city of 
Washington gave $1,000,000 and Georgetown and Alex- 
andria $250,000 each. Its entire cost was $12,000,000. 
It was intended to be another artery to bring the com- 



DURING THE WAR. 69 

merce of the world to Washington, and yet the Wash- 
ington end of it had come to this ! 

Capitol Hill, dreary, desolate and dirty, stretched away 
into an uninhabited desert, high above the mud of the 
West End. Arid hill, and sodden plain showed alike the 
horrid trail of war. Forts bristled above every hill-top. 
Soldiers were entrenched at every gate-way. Shed hos- 
pitals covered acres on acres in every suburb. Churches, 
art-halls and private mansions were filled with the 
wounded and dying of the American armies. The end- 
less roll of the army wagon seemed never still. The 
rattle of the anguish-laden ambulance, the piercing cries 
of the sufferers whom it carried, made morning, noon and 
night too dreadful to be borne. The streets were filled 
with marching troops, with new regiments, their hearts 
strong and eager, their virgin banners all untarnished as 
they marched up Pennsylvania avenue, playing "The girl 
I left behind me," as if they had come to holiday glory — 
to easy victory. But the streets were filled no less with 
soldiers foot-sore, sun-burned, and weary, their clothes 
begrimed, their banners torn, their hearts sick with 
hope deferred, ready to die with the anguish of long de- 
feat. Every moment had its drum-beat, every hour was 
alive with the tramp of troops going, coming. How 
many an American " boy," marching to its defence, be- 
holding for the first time the great dome of the Capitol 
rising before his eyes, comprehended in one deep gaze, as 
he never had in his whole life before, all that that Capi- 
tol meant to him, and to every free man. Never, till the 
Capital had cost the life of the beautiful and brave of our 
land, did it become to the heart of the Americaft citizen 
of the nineteenth century the object of personal love that 



70 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

it was to George Washington. To that hour the intense 
loyalty to country, the pride in the National Capital which 
amounts to a passion in the European, in the American 
had been diffused, weakened and broken. In ten thou- 
sand instances State allegiance had taken the place of 
love of country. Washington was nothing but a place 
in which Congress could meet and politicians carry on 
their games at high stakes for power and place. New 
York was the Capital to the New Yorker, Boston to the 
New Englander, New Orleans to the Southerner, Chicago 
to the man of the West. There was no one central rally- 
ing point of patriots to the universal nation. The unfin- 
ished Washington monument stood the monument of the 
nation's neglect and shame. What Westminster Abbey 
and Hall were to the Englishman, what Notre Dame and 
the Tuileries were to the Frenchman, the unfinished 
and desecrated Capitol had never been to the average 
American. Anarchy threatened it. In an hour the 
heart of the nation was centered in the Capital. The 
nation was ready to march to its defence. Every public 
building, every warehouse was full of troops. Washing- 
ton city was no longer only a name to the mother wait- 
ing and praying in the distant hamlet; her hoy was 
camped on the floor of the Kotunda. No longer a far off 
myth to the lonely wife ; her husband held guard upon 
the heights which defended the Capital. No longer a 
place good for nothing but political schemes to the vil- 
lage sage ; his hoi/, wrapped in his blanket, slept on the 
stone steps under the shadow of the great Treasury. The 
Capital, it was sacred at last to tens of thousands, whose 
beloved languished in the wards of its hospitals or slept 
the sleep of the brave in the dust of its cemeteries. Thus 



SACKED TO THE MARTYRS OF LIBERTY. 71 

from the holocaust of war, from the ashes of our sires and 
sons arose new-born the holy love of country, and venera- 
tion for its Capital. The zeal of nationality, the passion 
of patriotism awoke above the bodies of our slain. Na- 
tional songs, the inspiration of patriots, soared toward 
heaven. National monuments began to rise consecrated 
forever to the martyrs of Liberty. Never, till that hour, 
did the Federal city — the city of George "Washington, 
the first-born child of the Union, born to live or to per- 
ish with it, — become to the heart of the American peo- 
ple that which it had so long been in the eyes of the 
world — truly the Capital of the Nation. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE WASHINGTON OF THE PRESENT DAY. 

Hopes Realized — A Truly National City — Washington in 1873 — Major L'En- 
fant's Dream — Old and New — " Modern Improvements " — A City of Pal- 
aces — The Capital in All Its Glory — Traces of the War — Flowers on the 
Ramparts — Under the Oaks of Arlington — Ten Years Ago — The Birth 
of a Century — The Reign of Peace — The Capital of the Future. 

AND now ! The citizen of the year of our Lord 
1873 sees the dawn of that perfect day of which 
the founders of the Capital so fondly and fruitlessly 
dreamed. The old provincial Southern city is no more. 
From its foundations has risen another city, neither 
Southern nor Northern, but national, cosmopolitan. 

Where the "Slough of Despond" spread its waxen 
mud across the acres of the West End, where pedestri- 
ans were "slumped," and horses "stalled," and discom- 
fort and disgust prevailed, we now see broad carriage 
drives, level as floors, over which grand equipages and 
pony phaetons glide with a smoothness that is a luxury, 
and an ease of motion which is rest. Where ravines and 
holes made the highway dangerous, now the concrete 
and Nicholson pavements stretch over miles on miles of 
inviting road. Where streets and avenues crossed and 
re-crossed their long vistas of shadeless dust, now plat on 
plat of restful grass " park " the city from end to end. 
Double rows of young trees line these parks far as the 



time's changes. 73 

sight can reach. In these June days they fill the air with 
tender bloom. Gazing far on through their green ar- 
cades the sight rests at last where poor Major L'Enfant 
dreamed and planned that it one day would, — on the 
restful river, with its white flecks of sails, upon distant 
meadows and the Virginia hills. Old Washington was 
full of small Saharas. Where . the great avenues in- 
tersected acres of white sand were caught up and carried 
through the air by counter winds. It blistered at white 
heat beneath your feet, it flickered like a fiery veil before 
your eyes, it penetrated your lungs and begrimed your 
clothes. Now where streets and avenues cross, emerald 
" circles " with central fountains, pervading the air with 
cooling spray, with belts of flowers and troops of children, 
and restful seats for the old or the weary take the place 
of the old Saharas. In every direction tiny parks are 
blooming with verdurous life. Concrete walks have 
taken the place of their old gravel-stone paths. Seats — 
thanks to General Babcock — everywhere invite to sit 
down and rest beneath trees which every summer cast a 
deeper and more protecting shadow. The green pools 
which used to distill malaria beneath your windows are 
now all sucked into the great sewers, planted at last in 
the foundations of the city. The entire city has been 
drained. Every street has been newly graded. The 
Tiber, inglorious stream, arched and covered forever 
from sight, creeps in darkness to its final gulf in the 
river. The canal, drained and filled up, no longer 
breeds pestilence. Pennsylvania avenue has outlived its 
mud and its poplars, to be all and more than Jefferson 
dreamed it would be, — the most magnificent street on 
the continent. Its lining palaces are not yet built, but 



74 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

more than one superb building like that of the Daily 
National Republican soars high above the lowly shops of 
the past, a forerunner of the architectural splendor of the 
buildings of the future. Cars running every five min- 
utes have tajten the place of the solitary stage, plodding 
its slow way between Georgetown and the Capital. Cap- 
itol Hill, which had been retrograding for more than 
forty years, has taken on the look of a suddenly growing 
city Its dusty ways and empty spaces are beginning to 
fill with handsome blocks of metropolitan houses. Even 
the old Capital prison is transformed into a handsome 
and fashionable block of private dwellings. The im- 
provements at the West End are more striking. Solid 
blocks of city houses are rising in every direction, taking 
the place of the little, old, isolated house of the past, with 
its stiff porch, high steps, and open basement doorway. 
Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut avenues are al- 
ready lined with splendid mansions, the permanent winter 
homes of Senators and other high official and military 
officers. The French, Spanish, English and other foreign 
governments have bought on and near these avenues lor 
the purpose of building on them handsome houses for 
their separate legations. The grounds of the Executive 
Mansion are being enlarged, extending to the Potomac 
with a carriage drive encircling, running along the shore 
of the river, extending through the Agricultural Smith- 
sonian and Botanical garden grounds, thus fulfilling the 
original intent of connecting the White House with the 
Capitol by a splendid drive. The same transformation is 
going on in the Capitol grounds. Blocks of old houses 
have been torn down and demolished, to make room for 
a park fit to encircle the Capitol, which can never be 



GRAND PULIC BUILDINGS. 75 

complete till it takes in all the rolling slopes which lie 
between it and the Potomac. No scaffolding and pulleys 
now deface the snowy surfaces of the Capitol. Unim- 
peded the dome soars into mid-air, till the goddess of 
liberty on its top seems caught into the embrace of the 
clouds. The beautiful Treasury building is completed, 
and a block further on, the click of ceaseless hammers 
and the rising buttresses of solid stone tell of the new 
war and navy departments which are swiftty growing 
beside the historic w T alls of the old. Even the Wash- 
ington monument has been taken into hand by Gen- 
eral Babcock, to whom personally the Capital owes so 
much, and by a fresh appeal to the States he hopes to 
re-arouse their patriotism and insure its grand comple- 
tion. Flowers blossom on the ramparts of the old forts, 
so alert with warlike life ten years ago. The army 
roads, so deeply grooved then, are grass-grown now. 
The long shed-hospitals have vanished, and stately dwell- 
ings stand on their already forgotten sites. The "'boys " 
who languished in their wards, the boys who marched 
these streets, who guarded this city, how many of them 
lie on yonder hill-top under the oaks of Arlington, and 
amid the roses of the Soldier's Home. Peace, prosperity 
and luxury have taken the place of war, of knightly days 
and of heroic men. 

The mills of time grind slowly. What a tiny stroke 
in its cycles is a single century. One hundred years ! 
The year nineteen hundred! Then if the father of his 
country can look down from any star upon the city of 
his love he will behold in the new Washington that 
which even he did not foresee in his earthly life — one 
of the most magnificent cities of the whole earth. 



CHAPTER VII. 
WHAT MADE NEW WASHINGTON. • 

Municipal Changes — Necessity of Reform — Committee of One Hundred 
Constituted — Mr. M. G. Emery Appointed Mayor— The " Organic Act" 
Passed — Contest for the Governorship of Columbia District — Mr. Henry 
D. Cooke Appointed — Board of Public Works Constituted — Great Im- 
provements Made — Opposition — The Board and its Work — Sketch 
of Alexander B. Shepherd — His Efforts During the War— Patriotic 
Example. 

A SKETCH of the territorial government which now 
rules the District of Columbia, will account for new 
Washington and the many beneficent changes which have 
renovated the city. 

As early as the winter of 1868, efforts were made to se- 
cure a united government for the entire District, instead 
of the triple affair then in operation, viz. : municipal cor- 
porations for Washington and Georgetown, and the Levy 
court for the County. Under that regime no system of 
general improvements could be established. The District 
was under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress and was 
obliged to beg and plead with that body for permission to 
begin and for appropriations to pay for each improvement, 
as its increasing business and population imperatively de- 
manded. Again, the extension of the right of suffrage 
and the consequent increase of the number of ignorant 
voters, made it apparent that something must be done to 
prevent the control of the cities falling into the power of 



DIFFICULTIES OF "A LITTLE BILL." 77 

a class of petty ward politicians of the very worst order, 
who had sprung up just after the war, and who had already 
caused considerable uneasiness in the minds of the solid 
and thinking portion of the community, by the rapid man- 
ner in which they had managed to increase the public debt 
without showing any corresponding public benefits. 

It was at first proposed to have the District governed 
by commissioners to be appointed by the President, and 
I believe bills to that effect were introduced into Con- 
gress by Senator Hamlin, and Mr. Morrill, of Maine, but 
were defeated. Of course the proposed change was very 
unpopular, and the Washington Common Council passed 
a series of resolutions protesting against any interference 
with the government then existing. The extravagance 
and venality of the administration of 1868-9, however, 
awakened the sober and thoughtful minded citizens to 
the absolute necessity of a radical and vigorous reform, 
and during the winter of 1869-70 a committee of one 
hundred was constituted, to whom was given the task 
of perfecting a bill granting a territorial government to 
the District, and of the urging of its passage by Con- 
gress. This bill failed to pass that session, and there 
next came a bitter political contest, resulting in the 
election of Hon. M. G. Emery as Mayor of Washington. 

The evils which it was supposed Mr. Emery would 
correct, did not seem to lessen during his administration, 
and in the following winter the project of a new govern- 
ment was revived and urged with so much vigor that 
Congress, on the 21st of January, 1871, passed what is 
now known as the "Organic Act," establishing and de- 
fining the powers of the territorial government of the 
District of Columbia. Immediately following the pas- 



78 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

sage of this act there appeared four prominent candi- 
dates for the governorship of the young territory, viz : 
Messrs. M. G. Emery, Sayles J. Bowen, Jas. A. Magruder, 
and Alex. R. Shepherd. Messrs. Emery and Bowen soon 
subsided, and the contest narrowed to between Messrs. 
Shepherd and Magruder. 

It was unmistakably the popular desire that the ap- 
pointment should be given to Mr. Shepherd. He had 
been more prominent than any other individual named 
in securing the change effected ; the nucleus of the Or- 
ganic Act is said to have been drafted by him, and the en- 
ergy and sagacity he had shown in his public life pointed 
him out as peculiarly fit for the position. Besides, he 
had gained the popular confidence by his unvarying in- 
tegrity and fearless independence, and by a quality too 
rarely observed in a public man — positive manliness. 
Colonel Magruder, the Georgetown candidate, was quite 
popular in that city, where he had for a number of years 
been the collector of customs. Though at that time he 
was not extensively known in Washington, those who 
were his friends were ardent and untiring in their support. 
It soon became evident that the appointment of either 
of these gentlemen would cause extreme dissatisfaction 
to the supporters of his competitors, and as it was espe- 
cially desirable that the new government should com- 
mence its operations with perfect good feeling pervading 
all the different parties, a governor was sought who 
should harmonize all differences, and Henry D. Cooke, 
of the firm of Jay Cooke & Co., a gentleman of unim- 
peachable integrity, who had kept aloof from all factions 
and who, in fact, was one of Mr. Shepherd's warmest 
supporters, was at length selected. 



A WELL-SEASONED "BOAED." 79 

Then came the appointment of that body of men, 
against whom so much abuse has been hurled, but to 
whose energies the existence of the new Washington 
I have portrayed is wholly attributable, viz : the Board 
of Public Works. This Board was at first composed of 
Messrs. A. R. Shepherd, A. B. Mullett, S. P. Brown, and 
James A. Magruder, with the Governor as president ex- 
officio. Since then Messrs. Mullett and Brown have re- 
signed, and their places have been filled by Messrs. Adolf 
Cluss, and Henry A. Willard. 

I may state also that the first Secretary of the District 
was N. P. Chipman, and that when he was elected as the 
delegate to Congress, the position was given to E. L. 
Stanton, the son of the late Secretary Stanton, by whom 
it is now filled. 

All the gentlemen I have named are men of clear intel- 
ligence, excellent business capacity, and positive energy. 

The amount of labor performed by the Board of Public 
Works can scarcely be imagined by one who has not lived 
right here in the District, and observed the complete and 
almost magical changes that have taken place. Embar- 
rassed at the very commencement of their career by the 
slipshod manner in which improvements had been carried 
on under the old corporations, they soon encountered a 
violent opposition from many citizens who should have 
heartily supported their efforts. This opposition was or- 
ganized and persistent, leaving no artifice untried to hin- 
der and check the efforts of the Board, seeking injunction 
after injunction in the courts, and finally appealing to 
Congress and effecting an investigation which lasted for 
four months, and was as searching and minute as any 
ever attempted by that body, but which ended not only 



80 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

in the absolute acquittal of the Board of every charge 
alleged, but in a cordial commendation of their acts by 
the committee which conducted the inquiry. 

I wish to give this Board of Public Works the credit to 
which they are justly entitled. When I read the slanders 
that are cast upon them, I want to ask the authors if they 
would prefer the dingy, straggling, muddy, dusty Wash- 
ington of two years ago to the bright, compact, clean and 
beautiful city of to-day ? 

The "head and front" of this Board, the man who has 
infused a portion of his own enthusiasm into his fellow 
members, the man to whose comprehensive mind and 
untiring energy the success of the Board is almost en- 
tirely due, who was made vice-president and executive 
officer by his colleagues because they recognized his 
great abilities, and were content to follow where he 
should lead, is Alexander R. Shepherd of Washington. 

He is a native of Washington, was born in 1835, and 
is consequently now but thirty-eight years old. His 
father died when he was quite a boy, and at the early 
age of ten years he began the rough struggle of life. 
He at first started to learn the carpenter's trade, but 
finding that unsuitable to his tastes he entered a store, 
as errand boy. At seventeen he was taken into the 
plumbing establishment of Mr. J. W. Thompson, as clerk. 
By industry, fidelity and ability, he at length attained 
a partnership in that house, and upon Mr. Thompson's 
retirement, succeeded to the full control of the business, 
which under his skillful management has so rapidly grown 
that it now defies competition with any similar establish- 
ment south of New York. 

When the war of the Rebellion broke out, Mr. Shep- 



STORY OF A SUCCESSFUL LIFE. 81 

herd was mainly instrumental in forming the* Union 
party in Washington, proving loyal amidst the bitter 
hostility of many of his best friends. As early as the 
15th of April, 1861, he enlisted as a private soldier, and 
for three months shouldered his musket in defense of the 
National Capital. In the same year he was elected a 
member of the Common Council, and again in 1862, 
when he was made president of that body. In 1867 he 
was appointed a member of the Levy court, and in that 
capacity first developed his ability and energy as a pub- 
lic man. He was president of the Citizens' Reform As- 
sociation during the Emery campaign, and was, I believe, 
the prime mover of Mr. Emery's nomination, and con- 
tributed by his efforts largely to that gentleman's success. 
At that election Mr. Shepherd was chosen to the Board 
of Aldermen, which position he held when appointed to 
the Board of Public Works. 

In person Mr. Shepherd is a tall, noble looking man, 
with a large, well-formed head, sharply-defined features, 
massive under jaw and square chin, indicative of the 
indomitable perseverance and firmness which are the 
most prominent traits in his character. Although a self- 
made marl, he has acquired a fund of information which 
many a collegian might envy. His mind is thoroughly 
disciplined, his perceptions keen, his decisions rapid, and 
his language vigorous and terse. In private life he is 
universally respected and esteemed. His benevolence is 
unbounded, and beside subscribing liberally to every pub- 
lic appeal, he performs innumerable acts of private char- 
ity, which few know save the grateful recipients. 

^It was believed by the majority of people that Gov- 
ernor Cooke would retain his position only until the fu- 



82 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

sion of the irritated factions was effected, and that in the 
event of his resignation Mr. Shepherd would be ap- 
pointed his successor. Whether Governor Cooke retires 
before the end of his term or not, it is the universal be- 
lief that Mr. Shepherd will be the second governor of 
the District of Columbia. 

He is a representative man, embodying in his history 
and character more emphatically, perhaps, than any other 
man, the new life of the new city of Washington. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

BUILDING THE CAPITOL. 

George Washington's Anxiety about it — His View of it Politically — Various 
Plans for the Building — Jefferson Writes to the Commissioners — His 
Letter to Mr. Carroll — "Poor Hallet " and His Plan— Wanton De- 
struction by the British, A. D. 1814 — Foundation of the Main Building 
Laid — The Site Chosen by Washington Himself — Imposing Ceremonies 
at the Foundation — Dedicatory Inscription on the Silver Plate — Inter- 
esting Festivities — The Birth of a Nation's Capital — Extension of the 
Building — Daniel Webster's Inscription — His Eloquent and Patriotic 
Speech — Mistaken Calculations — First Session of Representatives Sit- 
ting in "the Oven" — Old Capital Prison — Immense Outlay upon the 
Wings and Dome — Compared with St. Peter's and St. Paul's — The 
Goddess of Liberty — The Congressional Library — Proposed Altera- 
tions — What Ought to be Done. 

aEORGE WASHINGTON believed the building of 
the Capitol to be identical with the establishment 
of a permanent seat of government. To the consumma- 
tion of this crowning building, the deepest anxiety and 
devotion of his later years were dedicated. Next to de- 
termining a final site for the city was the difficulty of 
deciding on a plan for its Capitol. 

Poor human nature had to contend awhile over this 
as it seems to have to about almost everj^thing else. A 
Mr. S. Hallet had a plan : Dr. Thornton had one, also. 
Jefferson wrote "to Dr. Stewart, or to all the gentlemen" 
Commissioners, January 31, 1793 : 

" I have, under consideration, Mr. Hallet's plans for the Capi- 
tol, which undoubtedly have a great deal of merit. Doctor 



84 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

Thornton has also given me a view of his. The grandeur, sim- 
plicity and beauty of the exterior, the propriety with which 
the departments are distributed, and economy in the mass of the 
whole structure, will, I doubt not give it a preference in your 
eyes as it has done in mine and those of several others whom I 
have consulted. I have, therefore, thought it better to give the 
Doctor time to finish his plan, and for this purpose to delay 
until your meeting a final decision. Some difficulty arises with 
respect to Mr. Hallet, who, you know, was in some degree led 
into his plan by ideas which we all expressed to him. This 
ought not to induce us to prefer it to a better ; but while he is 
liberally rewarded for the time and labor he has expended on it, 
his feelings should be saved and soothed as much as possible. I 
leave it to yourselves how best to prepare him for the possibil- 
ity that the Doctor's plans may be preferred to his." 

February 1, 1793, Jefferson writes from Philadelphia to 
Mr. Carroll — 

" Dear Sir : — Doctor Thornton's plan for a Capitol has been 
produced and has so captivated the eyes and judgments of all 
as to leave no doubt you will prefer it when it shall be exhibit- 
ed to you ; as no doubt exists here of its preference over all 
which have been produced, and among its admirers no one is 
more decided than him, whose decision is most important. It 
is simple, noble, beautiful, excellently distributed and moderate 
in size. A just respect for the right of approbation in the Com- 
missioners will prevent any formal decision in the President, till 
the plan shall be laid before you and approved by you. In the 
meantime the interval of apparent doubt may be improved for 
settling the mind of poor Hallet whose merits and distresses in- 
terests every one for his tranquillity and pecuniary relief." 

These quotations are chiefly interesting in connection 
with the fact that poor, pushed-to-the-wall Hallet re- 
bounded afterwards, notwithstanding Jefferson's enthu- 



"poor hallet" wins THE DAT. 85 

siasm over Thornton's plan, and Washington's declaration 
that it combined "grandeur, simplicity and convenience." 
The architects preferred the design of Hallet and in build- 
ing retained but two or three of the features of Doctor 
Thornton's plan. 

After the burning of the Capitol wings by the British, 
August, 1814, Mr. B. H. Latrobe, of Maryland, began 
to rebuild the Capitol on Stephen Hallet's plan. The 
foundations of the main building were laid March 24, 
1818, under the superintendence of Charles Bulfinch, and 
the original design was completed in 1825. The site of 
the Capitol was chosen by George Washington, on a hill 
ninety feet above tide-water, commanding a view of the 
great plateau below, the circling rivers, and girdling 
hills — a hill in 1663 named " Room," later Rome, and 
owned by a gentleman named " Pope." 

September 18, 1793, the south-east corner of the Capi- 
tol was laid by Washington with imposing ceremonies. 
A copy of The Maryland Gazette, published in Annapolis, 
September 26, 1793, gives a minute account of the grand 
Masonic ceremonial, which attended the laying of that 
august stone. It tells us that " there appeared on the 
southern bank of the river Potomac one of the finest com- 
panies of artillery that hath been lately seen parading to 
receive the President of the U. S." Also, that the Com- 
missioners delivered to the President, who deposited in 
the stone a silver plate with the following inscription : 

" This south-east corner of the Capitol of the United States 
of America, in the city of Washington, was laid on the 18th day 
of September, 1792, in the thirteenth year of American Inde- 
pendence ; in the first year, second term of the Presidency of 
George Washington, whose virtues in the civil administration 



86 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

of his country have been as conspicuous and beneficial, as his 
military valor and prudence have been useful, in establishing 
her liberties, and in the year of Masonry, 5793, by the President 
of the United States, in concert with the Grand Lodge of Mary- 
land, several lodges under its jurisdiction and Lodge No. 22 from 
Alexandria, Virginia. 

rSigned] Thomas Johnson, } „ 

L ° J _ / Lommission- 

David Stewart, > , „ 

^ „ I ers, etc. 

Daniel Carroll, ; 

The Gazette continues : — 

" The whole company retired to an extensive booth, where 
an ox of 500 lbs. weight was barbecued, of which the company 
generally partook with every abundance of other recreation. 
The festival concluded with fifteen successive volleys from the 
artillery, whose military discipline and manoeuvres merit every 
commendation." 

" Before dark the whole company departed with joyful hopes 
of the production of their labors." 

Fifty-eight years later, near this spot another corner- 
stone was deposited bearing the following inscription in 
the writing of Daniel Webster : — 

" On the morning of the first day of the seventy-sixth year of 
the Independence of the United States of America, in the city 
of Washington, being the fourth day of July, eighteen hundred 
and fifty-one, this stone designed as the corner-stone of the ex- 
tension of the Capitol, according to a plan approved by the 
President in pursuance of an act of Congress was laid by 

MILLARD FILMORE, 

PRESIDENT of the united states, 

Assisted by the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodges, in the 
presence of many Members of Congress, of officers of the Execu- 



FIFTY YEAES LATEE. 87 

tive and Judiciary departments, National, State and Districts, of 
officers of the Army and Navy, the Corporate authorities of this 
and neighboring cities, many associations, civil and military and 
Masonic, officers of the Smithsonian Institution, and National 
Institute, professors of colleges and teachers of schools of the 
Districts, with their students and pupils, and a vast concourse 
of people from places near and remote including a few surviv- 
ing gentlemen who witnessed the laying of the corner-stone of 
the Capitol by President Washington, on the 18th day of Sep- 
tember, 1793. If, therefore, it shall hereafter be the will of God 
that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundation be 
upturned, and this deposit brought to the eyes of men ; be it 
then known that on this day the Union of the United States of 
America stands firm, that their constitution still exists unim- 
paired, and with all its original usefulness and glory growing 
every day stronger and stronger in the affections of the great 
body of the American people, and attracting more and more the 
admiration of the world. And all here assembled, whether be- 
longing to public life or to private life, with hearts devoutly 
thankful to Almighty God for the preservation of the liberty 
and happiness of the country, unite in sincere and fervent 
prayer, that this deposit, and the walls and arches, the domes 
and towers, the columns and entablatures, now to be erected 
over it may endure forever. 

" God Save the United States of America. 

DANIEL WEBSTER, 
Secretary of State of the United States" 

In the speech made by Mr. Webster on this occasion 
he uttered the following words : — 

" Fellow citizens, what contemplations are awakened in our 
minds as we assemble to re-enact a scene like that performed 
by Washington! Methinks I see his venerable form now be- 
fore me as presented in the glorious statue by Houdon, now 
in the Capitol of Virginia We perceive that mighty 



88 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

thoughts mingled with fears as well as with hopes, are strug- 
gling with him. He heads a short procession over these then 
naked fields ; he crosses yonder stream on a fallen tree ; he as- 
cends on the top of this eminence, whose original oaks of the 
forest stand as thick around him as if the spot had been devoted 
to Druidical worship and here he performs the appointed duty of 
the day." 

Fifty-eight years stretched between this scene and the 
last and already the mutterings of civil revolution stirred 
in the air. Could Webster have foreseen that the mar- 
ble walls of the Capitol whose corner-stone he then laid 
would rise amid the thunder of cannon aimed to destroy 
it and the great Union of States w r hich it crowned, to 
what anguish of eloquence would his words have risen ! 

The Capitol fronting the east was set by an astronomi- 
cal observation of Andrew Ellicott. Its founders were as 
much mistaken in the direction which the future city 
would take as they were in the future commerce of the 
Potomac. They expected that a metropolis would spring 
up on Capitol Hill, spreading on to the Navy Yard and 
Potomac. Land-owners made this impossible by the price 
they set upon their city lots. The metropolis defied them 
— went clown into the valley and grew up behind the 
Capitol. 

The north w T ing of the central Capitol was made ready 
for the first sitting of Congress in Washington, November 
17, 1800. By that time the walls of the south wing had 
risen twenty feet and were covered over for the tempo- 
rary use of the House of Representatives. It sat in this 
room named "the oven" from 1802, until 1804. At that 
time the transient roof w r as removed and the wing com- 
pleted under the superintendence of B. II. Latrobe until 



EEMINTSCENCE OF THE KEBELLION". 89 

its completion. The House occupied the room of the Li- 
brary of Congress. The south wing was finished in 1811. 

The original Capitol was built of sandstone taken from 
an island in Acquia Creek, Virginia. The island was pur- 
chased by the government in 1791 for $6,000 for the use 
of the quarry. The interior of both wings was destroyed 
by fire when the British took the city in 1814, the outer 
walls remaining uninjured. Latrobe, who had resigned 
in 1813, was re-appointed after the fire to reconstruct the 
Capitol. The following December, Congress passed an 
act leasing a building on the east side of the Capitol, the 
building afterwards so famous as " Old Capitol Prison," 
and which was crowded with prisoners during the war of 
the Rebellion. Congress held its sessions in this building 
till the rebuilt Capitol was ready for occupation. 

By act of Congress, September 30, 1850, provision 
was made for the grand extension wings of the Capitol, 
to be built on such a plan as might be approved by the 
President. The plan of Thomas C. Walter was accepted 
by President Fillmore, June 10, 1851, and he was ap- 
pointed architect of the Capitol to carry his plan into 
execution. Walter was the architect of Girard College, 
Philadelphia, and to him we owe the magnificent marble 
wings and iron dome of the Capitol. The dome cost one 
million one hundred thousand dollars. The win^s cost 
six millions five hundred thousand dollars. The height 
of the interior of the dome of the Capitol from the floor 
of the rotunda is 180 feet and 3 inches. The height of 
the exterior from the floor of the basement story to the 
top of the crowning statue is 287 feet and 5 inches. The 
interior diameter is 97 feet. The exterior diameter of 
the drum is 108 feet. The greatest exterior diameter is 



90 TEN YEARS m WASHINGTON". 

135 feet, 5 inches. The Capitol is 751 feet, 4 inches long, 
31 feet longer than St. Peter's in Rome, and 175 feet longer 
than St. Paul's in London. The height of the interior of 
the dome of St. Peter's is 330 feet. The height of the 
interior of the dome of St. Paul's is 215 feet. The 
height of the exterior of St. Peter's to the top of lantern 
is 432 feet. The height of the exterior of the dome of 
St. Paul's is 215 feet. 

The ground actually covered by the Capitol is 153,112 
square feet or 652 square feet more than 3 1-2 acres. Of 
these the old building covered 61,201 square feet and the 
new wings with connecting corridors, 91,311 square feet. 

The dome of the Capitol is the highest structure in 
America. It is one hundred and eight feet higher than 
Washington Monument in Baltimore ; sixty-eight feet 
higher than Bunker Hill Monument and twenty-three 
feet higher than the steeple of Trinity Church, New York. 
Mr. Walter was succeeded by Mr. Edward Clarke, the 
present architect of the Capitol. Thus far Mr. Clarke's 
work has consisted chiefly in finishing and harmonizing 
the work of his varied and sometimes conflicting prede- . 
cessors. Under his supervision the dome has been com- 
pleted, and Thomas Crawford's grand goddess of liberty, 
sixteen and one-half feet high, has ascended to its summit 
while he has wrought out in the interior the most harmo- 
nious room of the Capitol — the Congressional Library. 

The greatest work which he still desires to do is to put 
the present front on the rear of the Capitol facing the 
city, and to draw forth the old freestone fronts and re- 
build it with marble, making a grand central portico par- 
allel with the magnificent marble wings of the Senate and 
House extension. To rebuild the central front will cost 



ANCIENT MYTHS AND MODERN REALITIES. 91 

two millions of dollars. The face of the Capitol will 
never be worthy of itself till this is accomplished. The 
grand outward defect of the Capitol is the slightness and 
insignificance of the central portico compared with the 
superlative Corinthian fronts of the wings. Between 
their outreaching marble steps, beside their majestic mon- 
oliths the central columns shrink to feebleness and give 
the impression that the great dome is sinking down upon 
them to crush them out of sight. There is something 
soaring in the proportions of the dome. Its summit 
seems to spring into the empyrean. Its proud goddess 
poised in mid-air, caught in their swift embrace, seems to 
sail with the fleeting clouds. Nevertheless its tremen- 
dous base set upon that squatting roof threatens it with 
perpetual annihilation. 

From the very beginning the Capitol has suffered as a 
National Building from the conflicting and foreign tastes 
of its decorators. Literally begun in the woods by a na- 
tion in its infancy, it not only borrowed its face from the 
buildings of antiquity, but it was built by men, strangers in 
thought and spirit to the genius of a new Bepublic, and 
the unwrought and unimbodied poetry of its virgin soil. 
Its earlier decorators, all Italians, overlaid its walls with 
their florid colors and foreign symbols ; within the Ameri- 
can Capitol, they have set the Loggia of Raphael, the 
voluptuous ante-rooms of Pompeii, and the Baths of Titus. 
The American plants, birds and animals, representing 
prodigal nature at home, though exquisitely painted are 
buried in twilight passages, while mythological bar-maids, 
misnamed goddesses, dance in the most conspicuous and 
preposterous places. The Capitol has already survived 
this era of false decorative art. 



92 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

Congress in 1859 authorized a Commission of distin- 
guished American artists, comprising Messrs. Brown, 
Lumsden and Kensett, to study the decorations of the 
Capitol and report upon their abuses. Their suggestions 
are beginning to be followed, and yet so carelessly, that af- 
ter the lapse of fourteen years they need reiteration. The 
Artist Committee recommended an Art Commission, com- 
posed of those designated by the united voice of America. 
Artists as competent to the office who shall be the chan- 
nels for the distribution of all appropriations to be made 
by Congress for art purposes, and who shall secure to 
artists an intelligent and unbiased adjudication upon the 
designs they may present for the embellishment of the na- 
tional buildings. When one remembers some of the Con- 
gressional Committees who have decided on decorations 
for the Capitol even within the last ten years, it is enough 
to make one cry aloud for a Commission designated by 
artists, whose art-culture shall at least be sufficient to 
tell a decent picture from a daub, a noble statue from a 
pretense and a sham. 

In conclusion the Commission of Artists said : — 

" The erection of a great National Capitol seldom occurs but 
once in the life of a nation. The opportunity such an event 
affords is an important one for the expression of patriotic ele- 
vation, and the perpetuation, through the arts of painting and 
sculpture, of that which is high and noble and held in reA'erence 
by the people ; and it becomes them as patriots to see to it that 
no taint of falsit}^ is suffered to be transmitted to the future up- 
on the escutcheon of our national honor in its artistic record. 
A theme so noble and worthy should interest the heart of the 
whole country, and whether patriot, statesman or artist, one im- 
pulse should govern the whole in dedicating these buildings and 
grounds to the national honor." 



CHAPTER IX. 

INSIDE THE CAPITOL. 

A Visit to the Capitol — The Lower Hall — Its Cool Tranquillity — Artistic 
Treasures — The President's and Vice-President's Rooms- — The Marble 
Room — The Senate Chamber — "Men I have Known" — Hamlin — Foote — 
Foster — Wade — Colfax — Wilson — The Rotunda— Great Historical Paint- 
ings — The Old Hall of Representatives — The New Hall— The Speaker's 
Room — Native Art — "The Star of Empire " — A National Picture. 

COME with me. This is your Capitol. It is like 
passing from one world into another, to leave be- 
hind the bright June day for the cool, dim halls of the 
lower Capitol. No matter how fiercely the sun burns in 
the heavens, his fire never penetrates the twilight of this 
grand hall, whose eight hundred feet measure the length 
of the Capitol from end to end. 

Here, in Egyptian Colonnades', rise the mighty shafts 
of stone which bear upon their tops the mightier mass 
of marble, and which seem strong enough to support the 
world. In the summer solstice they cast long, cool 
shadows, full of repose and silence. The gas-lights flick- 
ering on the walls, send long golden rays through the 
dimness to light us on. We have struck below the jar 
and tumult of life. The struggles of a nation may be 
going on above our heads, yet so vast and visionary are 
these vistas opening before us, so deep the calm which 
surrounds us, we seem far away from the world that we 



94 TEN YEAES IN" WASHINGTON. 

have left, in this new world which we have found. Every 
time I descend into these lower regions I get lost. In 
wandering on to find our way out, we are sure to make 
numerous discoveries of unimagined beauty. Here are 
doors after doors in almost innumerable succession, open- 
ing into departments of commerce, agriculture, etc., whose 
every panel holds exquisite gems of illustrative painting. 
Birds, flowers, fruits, landscapes, in rarest fresco and color, 
here reveal themselves to us through the dim light. 

It would take months to study and to learn these pic- 
tures which artists have taken years to paint. They 
make a department of art in themselves, yet thousands 
who think that they know the Capitol well are not aware 
of their existence. At the East Senate entrance, look at 
these polished pillars of Tennessee marble, their chocolate 
surface all flecked with white, surrounding a staircase meet 
for kings. They are my delight. Look at these foliated 
capitals, flowering in leaves of acanthus and tobacco. 
Look up to this ceiling of stained glass, its royal roses 
opening wide their crimson hearts above you ; these too 
are my delight. I am not one of those who can sneer 
at the Capitol. Its faults, like the faults of a friend are 
sacred. I know them, but wish to name them not, save 
to the one who only can remedy. It bears blots upon 
its fair face, but these can be washed away. It wears 
ornaments vulgar and vain, these can be stripped off 
and thrown out. Below them, beyond them all, abides 
the Capitol. The surface blemish vexes, the pretentious 
splendor offends. These are not the Capitol. We look 
deeper, we look higher, to find beauty, to see sublimity, 
to see the Capitol, august and imperishable ! 

The four marble staircases leading to the Senate Cham- 



THE BEAUTIES OF TriE MARBLE ROOM. 95 

ber and Hall of Representatives, in themselves alone em- 
body enough of grace and magnificence to save the Capi- 
tol from cynical criticism. We slip through the Senate 
corridor, you and I, to the President's and Vice-President's 
rooms. Their furniture is sumptuous, their decoration op- 
pressive. Gilding, frescoes, arabesques, glitter and glow 
above and around. There is not one quiet hue on which 
the tired sight may rest. Gazing, I feel an indescrib- 
able desire to pluck a few of Signor Brumidi's reel leg- 
ged babies and pug-nosed cupids from their precarious 
jDerches on the lofty ceilings, to commit them to nurses or 
to anybody who will smooth out their rumpled little legs 
and make them look comfortable. 

We are Americans, and need repose ; let us, therefore, 
pass to the Marble Room, which alone, of all the rooms 
of the Capitol, suggests it — 

" The end of all, the poppied sleep." 

Its atmosphere is soft, serene, and silent. Its ceiling is of 
white marble, deeply paneled, supported by fluted pillars 
of polished Italian marble. Its walls are of the exquisite 
marble of Tennessee — a soft brown, veined with white — 
set with mirrors. One whose aesthetic eyes have stud- 
ied the finest apartments of the world says that to him 
the most chaste and purely beautiful of all is the Marble 
Room of the American Capitol. Americans though we 
are, we have no time to rest, albeit we sorely need it. 

It is not for you or me to linger in marble rooms, 
maundering of art. Molly, rocking her baby out on the 
Western prairie, wants to know all about the Senate ; 
baby is going to be a senator some day. Moses, on that 
little rock-sown farm in New England, has his " chores all 



96 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

done." He rests in the Yankee paradise of kerosene, 
butternuts, apples, and cider. Yet to make his satisfac- 
tion complete, he must know a little more about the Capi- 
tol. Molly and Moses both expect us to see for them 
what they can not come to see for themselves. So let us 
peep into the Senate. It can not boast of the ampler pro- 
portions of the Hall of Representatives. Its golden walls 
and emerald doors can not rescue it from insignificance. 

The ceiling of this chamber is of cast-iron, paneled 
with stained glass — each pane bearing the arms of the 
different States, bound by most ornate mouldings, bronz- 
ed and gilded. The gallery, which entirely surrounds 
the hall, will seat one thousand persons. Over the Vice- 
President's chair, the section you see separated from the 
rest by a net-work of wire, is the reporters' gallery. The 
one opposite, lined with green, is the gallery of the diplo- 
matic corps ; next are the seats reserved for the Senators' 
families. The Senators sit in three semi-circular roAVS, 
behind small desks of polished wood, facing the Secretary 
of the Senate, his assistants, the special reporters of de- 
bates, and the Vice-President. 

On a dais, raised above all, sits the Vice-President. I 
have seen six men preside over the Senate. Hamlin, slow, 
solid, immobile, and good-natured. Foote, silver-haired, 
silver-toned, the king of parliamentarians. Foster of 
Connecticut, that most gentle gentleman, who went from 
the Senate bearing the good will of every Senator what- 
ever his politics. Wade, the most positive power of all, 
with his high, steep head, shaggy e3ebrows, beetling per- 
ceptive brow, half roofing the melancholy eyes, the rough- 
hewn nose, the dogged mouth, and broad immovable 
chin. Life lines our faces according to its will and gaz- 



"MEN I HAYE KNOWN." 97 

ing on the furrows of this one, one reads the story of the 
whole battle. Looking, there was no need that its own- 
er should tell what a warfare life had been since the poor 
farmer-boy, more than half a century ago, turned his face 
from the Connecticut Valley and striving with the earth 
beneath his feet dug his way (on the Erie Canal) toward 
the West to fortune, and to an honorable fame. Then 
came Schuyler Colfax, who brought into the silent and 
stately Senate the habits of the bustling noisy house. It 
was a hard seat for "Schuyler," that Vice-President's 
chair, and he came at last to vacate it regularly by two 
o'clock that he might write in the seclusion of the Vice- 
President's room a few of those ten thousand popular per- 
sonal letters which made his chief lever of influence with 
the people and which he always used to write in the 
Speaker's chair. As President of the Senate he was 
usually just, always urbane, never impressive. He had 
not the presence which filled the seat to the sight, nor 
the dignity which commanded attention, and silence. 
Under his ruling the Senate changed its character per- 
ceptibly from a grave august body to a buzzing and in- 
attentive one. As the President of the Senate seldom 
listened to a speaker, the Senators as rarely took the 
trouble to listen to each other. The question discussed 
might be of the gravest import to the whole nation, the 
speaker's words, to himself, might be of the most tremen- 
dous importance to the national weal, just the same he had 
to empty them upon vacancy, speaking to nothing in par- 
ticular, while the Vice-President looked another way, and 
his colleagues went on scribbling letters, whispering po- 
litical secrets to each other, munching apples in the aisles 
or smoking in the open cloak-rooms, with feet aloft. 



98 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Vice-President Wilson, without an atom of parliamen- 
tary experience, has already won the hearts and improv- 
ed the manners of the Senate by simply giving attention 
to its debates. No matter how tiresome, he steadfastly 
looks and listens. The humblest speaker — seeing that he 
has one pair of eyes fixed upon him, one direct immova- 
ble point toward which he may direct his remarks — takes 
heart, and in spite of himself makes a better speech than 
would be possible were he beating a vacuum, and speak- 
ing to nobody in particular. Even his listening constit- 
uency and the next day's Globe is not such an incentive 
to present inspiration as two steadfast eyes and one pair 
of good listening ears. 

We leave the Senate Chamber by the western gallery. 
Here in the niche at the foot of the staircase, correspond- 
ing to Franklin's on the opposite side, stands the noble 
figure of John Hancock. The stairs are of polished white 
marble and the painting above them leading to the gen- 
tlemen's gallery of the Senate, in its setting of maroon 
cloth represents the battle of Chapultapec in all the ar- 
dor of its fiery action. We saunter on along the breezy 
corridors through whose open windows we catch delicious 
glimpses of the garden city, the gliding river and the 
distant hills, past the Supreme Court room into the great 
rotunda. 

The rotunda is ninety-five feet in diameter, three hun- 
dred feet in circumference and over one hundred and 
eighty feet in height. Its dome contains over eight mil- 
lions eight hundred thousand pounds of iron, presenting 
the most finished specimen of iron architecture in the 
world. The panels of the rotunda are set with paintings 
of life-size, painted by Vanderlyn, Trumbull and others. 



"IF I WERE A MAtf." 99 

The Declaration of Independence ; the surrender of Bur- 
goyne ; surrender of the British Army, commanded by 
Lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia, October 19, 
17S1; resignation of General Washington at Annapolis, 
December 23, 1783, all by Colonel Trumbull; the bap- 
tism of Pocahontas by Chapman ; landing of Columbus by 
Vanclerlyn; De Soto's discovery of Gk&&BJ3&&&? by Powell. 
Like most works of genius these paintings have many 
merits and many defects. Perhaps the favorite of all is 
the Embarcation of the Pilgrims in the Speedwell at Delft 
Haven, by Bobert W. Weir. Its figures and the fabrics 
of its costumes are wonderfully painted ; so, too, is the 
face of the hoary Pilgrim who is giving thanks to God 
for their safe passage across stormy seas to the land of 
deliverance ; but the enchantment of the picture is the 
face of Bose Standish. If I were a man, I would marry 
such a face out of all the faces on the earth, for the being 
which it represents. These eyes, blue as heaven and as 
true, would never fail you. No matter how low you might 
fall, you could see only in them purity, faith, devotion, 
tenderness, and unutterable love — and all for you. 

The group in bas-relief over the western entrance of 
the rotunda was executed by Cappelano, a pupil of Can- 
ova. It represents the preservation of Captain Smith by 
Pocahontas. The design was taken from a rude engrav- 
ing of the event in the first edition of Smith's History of 
Virginia. The idea is national, but you see the execu- 
tion is preposterous. Powhatan looks like an English- 
man, and Pocahontas has a Greek face and a Grecian 
head-dress. The alto-relievo over the eastern entrance 
of the rotunda represents the Landing of the Pilgrims. 
The pilgrim, his wife and child are stepping from the 



100 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. , 

prow of a boat to receive from the hand of an Indian, 
kneeling on the rock before them, an ear of corn. Good 
Indian. He was no relation to the Modoc ! Still the 
little boy evidently has no faith in him for he is tugging 
at his father's arm as if to hold him back from that ear 
of corn or the hand that holds it. 

Over the south door of the rotunda we have Daniel 
Boone and two Indians in a forest. Boone has dispatched 
one Indian and is in close battle with the other. The lat- 
ter is doing his best to strike Boone with his tomahawk, 
but Boone averts the blow, by his rifle in one hand, while 
the other drawn back holds a long knife which he is about 
to run through his foe. The action is exciting enough 
for the New York Ledger, although rendered tangled 
and cramped by a too narrow space. It commemorates 
an occurrence which took place in the year 1773. This, 
as well as the landing of the Pilgrims, was .executed by 
Causici, another pupil of Canova. Over the northern 
door of the rotunda we have William Penn standing un- 
der an elm, in the act of presenting a treaty to the Indi- 
ans. Penn is dressed as a Quaker, and looks as benevolent 
as the crude stone out of which he is made will let him. 
This panel was executed by a Frenchman named Genelot. 

We pass through the noblest room of the Capitol, the 
old Hall of Representatives and through the open cor- 
ridor directly into the new Hall of Representatives. It 
occupies the precise place in the south wing which the 
Senate Chamber does in the northern wing. Like the Sen- 
ate room, the light of day comes to it but dimly through 
the stained glass roof overhead. Like that, also, it is en- 
tire, encircled by a corridor opening into smoking apart- 
ments, committee rooms, the Speaker's room, etc., which 



WHERE OUR LAWS ARE MADE. 101 

monopolize all the out of door air, and every out of door 
view. The air of the central chamber is pumped into it 
by a tremendous engine at work in the depths of the 
Capitol and admitted through ventilators one under each 
desk. You see these are covered with shining brass 
plates which by a touch of the foot can be adjusted to ad- 
mit a current of fresh air, or shut it off, according to the 
wish of the occupant of the chair above it. In former 
times these ventilators were uncovered, and then were 
used to such an extent as spittoons by the honorable gen- 
tlemen above them, and filled to such a depth with to- 
bacco quids and the stumps of cigars that the odor from 
them became unbearable and they had to be covered up. 

The Hall of Representatives is 139 feet long, 93 feet 
wide and 30 feet high with a gallery running entirely 
around the Hall, holding seats for 1200 persons. Like 
the Senate, the ceiling is of iron work bronzed, gilded and 
paneled with glass, each pane decorated with the arms of 
a State. At the corners of these panels in gilt and bronze 
are rosettes of the cotton plant in its various stages of 
bud and blossom. The Speaker's desk, splendid in pro- 
portion, is of pure white marble, while crossed above his 
head are two brilliant silk flags of the United States. 
One of the panels under the gallery at his left is filled 
with a painting in fresco, by Brumidi. 

The Speaker's room, in the rear of his chair across the 
inner lobby, is one of the most beautiful rooms in the 
Capitol. Its ornaments are not as glaring as those of the 
President's and Vice-President's rooms, while its mirrors, 
carved book-cases, velvet carpets and chairs, give it a 
look of home comfort as well as of luxury. It has a bright 
outlook upon the eastern grounds of the Capitol, and its 



102 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

walls are hung with portraits of every speaker from the 
First Congress to the present one. 

We pass through the private corridor looking from the 
Speaker's room out into the grand colonnaded vestibule 
opening upon the great portico of the south extension. 
These twenty-four columns and forty pilasters have blos- 
somed from native soil. Athens, Pompeii, Rome, are left 
out at last, and looking up to these flowering capitals 
we see corn-leaves, tobacco, and magnolias budding and 
blooming from their marble crowns. Every column, ev- 
ery pilaster bears a magnolia, each of a different form, all 
from casts of the natural flower. And far below, beneath 
the Representatives' Hall, there is a row of monolithic 
columns formed of the tobacco and thistle. It is above 
the marble staircase opposite, leading to the ladies' gal- 
lery, that we see painted on the wall covering the entire 
landing, the great painting of Leutze, representing the 
"Advance of Civilization ;" " Westward the Star of Em- 
pire takes its way" — is its motto. At the first glance 
it presents a scene of inextricable confusion. It is an 
emigrant train caught and tangled in one of the highest 
passes of the Rocky Mountains. Far backward spread 
the Eastern Plains; far onward stretches the Beulah of 
promise, fading at last in the far horizon. The great wag- 
ons struggling upward, tumbling downward from moun- 
tain precipice into mountain gorge, hold under their shak- 
ing covers every type of westward moving human life. 
Here is the mother sitting in the wagon-front, her blue 
eyes gazing outward, wistfully and far, the baby lying 
on her lap ; one wants to touch the baby's head, it looks 
so alive and tender and shelterless in all that dust and 
turmoil of travel. A man on horseback carries his wife, 



THE 2STEW-B0EN WEST. 103 

her head upon his shoulder. Who that has ever seen it 
will forget her sick look and the mute appeal in the suf- 
fering eyes. Here is the hold hunter with his racoon 
cap, the pioneer boy on horseback, a coffee-pot and cup 
dangling at his saddle, and oxen — such oxen ! it seems as 
if their friendly noses must touch us j they seem to be 
feeling out for our hand as we pass up to the gallery. 
Here is the young man, the old man, and far aloft stands 
the advance guard fastening on the highest and farthest 
pinnacle the flag of the United States. 

Confusing, disappointing perhaps, at first glance, this 
painting asserts itself more and more in the soul the oft- 
ener and the longer you gaze. Already the swift, smooth 
wheels of the railway, the shriek of the whistle, and the 
rush of the engine have made its story history. But it is 
the history of our past — the story of the heroic West. 
It is one of a thousand which should line the walls of the 
Capitol, feeding the hearts of the American people to the 
latest generation with the memory of our forefathers, 
showing by what toilsome ways they followed the Star 
of Empire and made the paths of civilization smooth 
for their children's feet. 



CHAPTER X. 

OUTSIDE THE CAPITOL. 

The Famous Bronze Doors — The Capitol Grounds — Statue of Washington 
Criticised — Peculiar Position for " the Father of his Country " — Horace 
Greenough's Defence of the Statue — Picturesque Scenery Around the 
Capitol — The City and Suburbs — The Public Reservation — The Smith- 
sonian Institution — The Potomac and the Hights of Arlington. 

TE come back to the grand vestibule of the southern 
wing, to the flowering magnolias, tobacco and corn- 
leaves of the marble capitals, and pass out to the great 
portico. This is one of the famous bronze doors designed 
by Eogers, and cast in Munich. How heavy, slow, and 
still, its swing! The other opens and closes upon the 
central door of the north wing, leading to the vestibule 
of the Senate. 

Here, from the portico we look out upon the eastern 
grounds of the Capitol in the unsullied panoply of a June 
morning, across the closely shorn grass, the borders of 
roses and beds of flowers, through the vista of maples 
With their green arcade of light and shadow, to the august 
form of George Washington sitting in the centre of the 
grounds in a lofty cerule chair mounted on a pedestal o± 
granite twelve feet high. 

This is the grandest and most criticised work of art 
about the Capitol. The form being nude to the waist 
and the right arm outstretched, it is a current vulgar joke 




* 



IDEALITY VERSUS FACT. 105 

that he is reaching out his hand for his clothes which are 
on exhibition in a case at the Patent Office. It is true that 
a sense of personal discomfort seems to emanate from the 
drapery — or lack of it — and the pose of this colossal figure. 
George Washington with his right arm outstretched, his 
left forever holding up a Roman sword, half naked, yet 
sitting in a chair, beneath bland summer skies, within a 
-veiling screen of tender leaves is a much more comfort- 
able looking object than when the winds and rains and 
snows of winter beat upon his unsheltered head and un- 
covered form. This statue was designed in imitation of 
the antique statue of Jupiter Tonans. The ancients made 
their statues of Jupiter naked above and draped below as 
being visible to the gods but invisible to men. But the 
average American citizen, being accustomed to seeing the 
Father of his country decently attired in small clothes, 
naturally receives a shock at first beholding him in next 
to no clothes at all. It is impossible for him to reconcile 
a Jupiter in sandals with the stately George Washing- 
ton in knee-breeches and buckled shoes. The spirit of 
the statue, which is ideal, militates against the spirit of 
the land which is utilitarian if not commonplace. 

Nevertheless, in poetry of feeling, in grandeur of con- 
ception, in exquisite fineness of detail and in execution, 
Horatio Greenough's statue of George Washington is 
transcendently the greatest work in marble yet wrought 
at the command of the government for the Capitol. It is 
scarcely human, certainly not American, but it is god- 
like. The face is a perfect portrait of Washington. The 
veining of a single hand, the muscles of a single arm are 
triumphs of art. 

Washington's chair is twined with acanthus leaves and 



106 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

garlands of flowers. The figure of Columbus leans against 
the back of the seat to the left, connecting the history of 
America with that of Europe ; an Indian chief on the right 
represents the condition of the country at the time of its 
discovery. The back of the seat is ornamented in basso- 
relievo with the rising sun, the crest of the American 
arms, under which is this motto : " Magnus ab integro 
smculorum nascitur ordo." On the left is sculptured in 
bas-relief the genii of North and South America under 
the forms of the infant Hercules strangling the serpent, 
and Iphiclus stretched on the ground shrinking in fear 
from the contest. The motto is " Incite posse puer cui 
non riser e par entes^ On the back of the seat is the fol- 
lowing motto : " Simulacrum istud ad magnum Liber - 
talis exemplum. Nee sine ipsa duraturum" 

One of the greatest works of contemporary art, the 
masterpiece of a master, it has been the subject of more 
rude and vulgar jests than any other piece of American 
sculpture. The painful disparity which so often exists 
between the judgment of the multitude and the inspira- 
tion of the creator has never been more touchinfflv ill us- 
trated than in the following words of Horatio Greenough, 
concerning this monument to his own genius and to the 
Father of his country. He says : " It is the birth of my 
thoughts, I have sacrificed to it the flower of my days, and 
the freshness of my strength ; its every lineament has 
been moistened with the sweat of my toil and the tears of 
my exile. I would not barter away its association with 
my name for the proudest fortune that avarice ever 
dreamed of. In giving it up to the nation that has done 
me the honor to order it at my hands, I respectfully claim 
for it that protection which is the boast of civilization to 



A RAMBLE IN" THE CAPITOL GROUNDS. 107 

afford art, and which a generous enemy has more than 
once been seen to extend even to the monuments of its 
own defeat." 

Retracing our steps to the rotunda, we turn westward 
through the main hall of the Congressional Library to the 
lofty colonnade outside, from whose balcony we look clown 
upon the view which Humbolt declared to be the most 
beautiful of its type in the whole world. Directly below 
us, past the western terrace of the Capitol, with its open 
basin full of gold fishes flashing in the sun, stretch the 
Capitol grounds. Many varieties of trees already grown 
to forest hight spread their interlacing roof of cool, 
green shadow over the malachite sward below. Beds of 
flowers set in the grass, from the early March crocuses to 
the November blooming roses, make the grounds fragrant 
and precious with their presence. Here the dandelion 
spreads its cloth of gold in early May. Here the chrysan- 
themums fringe the snow with pallid gold in white Decem- 
ber. Now the fountains are lapsing in dreamy tune 
through the long June hours, and the seats under the trees 
are filled with visitors. Nurses with children in their arms, 
old men and women leaning on their staffs, lovers "billing 
and cooing" through the long twilight and starlight sea- 
sons. Beyond spreads the city, every ugly outline hid- 
den and lost in a waving sea of greenery rippling and toss- 
ing above it. The great avenues run and radiate in all 
directions. Pennsylvania Avenue stretches straight on 
between its border of shade trees to its acropolis one mile 
distant, the great Treasury gleaming in the sun, and the 
white chimneys of the Executive Mansion peering above 
the trees ; and still on, till it joins the primitive streets 
of Georgetown. Massachusetts Avenue, broad, straight, 



108 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

magnificent, spans the city from end to end unbroken. 
Virginia Avenue to the left, goes on to meet Long 
Bridge, leading far into the Old Dominion. Directly in 
front stretches the public reservation yet to be made 
splendid as the Nation's Boulevards, but already holding 
the Congressional gardens and conservatories, the unique 
towers, and picturesque grounds of the Smithsonian In- 
stitution, the broad flower-banded terraces of the Agri- 
cultural Department, and the incomplete Washington 
Monument. Beyond we see the wide Potomac, flecked 
all over with snowy sails, far down old Alexandria, dingy 
on its farther shore ; opposite the Heights of Arlington, 
and amid its immemorial oaks ; Arlington House with 
the stars and stripes floating free from its crowning 
summit. 



CHAPTER XL 

ART TREASURES OF THE CAPITOL. 

Arrival of a Solitary Lady — " The Pantheon of America" — II Penserosa — 
Milton's Ideal— Dirty Condition of the House of Representatives — The 
Goddess of Melancholy — Vinnie Ream's Statue of Lincoln — Its Grand 
Defects — Necessary Qualifications for a Sculptor — The Bust of Lincoln 
by Mrs. Ames — General Greene and Roger Williams — Barbarous Gar- 
ments of Modern Times — Statues of Jonathan Trumbull and Roger 
Sherman — Bust of Kosciusco — Pulling His Nose — Alexander Hamilton — 
Fate of Senator Burr — Statue of Baker — His Last Speech Prophetic — 
The Glory of a Patriotic Example — The Lesson which Posterity Learns 
— Horatio Stone, the Sculptor — Washington's Statue at Richmond — 
Neglected Condition of the Capitol Statuary — Curious Clock — Gro- 
tesque Plaster Image of Liberty — Webster — Clay — Adams — The Pan- 
theon at Rome — The French Pantheon — Bar-Maid Goddess — Dirty Cus- 
toms of M. C's — Future Glory of America. 

A SOLITARY lady has arrived in the old Hall of the 
House of Representatives ; or, as Senator Anthony 
eloquently calls it, "the Pantheon of America." "Con- 
sidering her age," (as women sweetly say of each other,) 
"she looks quite young." What her precise age may 
be, I am as unable to tell you as that of any other of 
my friends. The daughter of Saturn and Vesta, we may, 
at least, conclude that she has lived long enough to look 
older than she does. Her name is "II Penserosa," and, 
" to judge by appearances," she seems to have flourished, 
about twenty-five of our mortal years. Yet Milton sung 
of her in his youth, before an unruly wife and three dis- 
obedient daughters, (who perversely wished to understand 



110 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

the alphabet which they read to their blind father,) had 
made him crabbed and loftily sour towards women — 
Milton sung of this maid who has but lately arrived in 
Washington : 

" Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, 
Sober, steadfast, and demure, 
All in a robe of darkest grain 
Flowing with majestic train, 
And sable stole of cypress lawn, 
Over thy decent shoulders drawn ; 
Come, but keep thy wonted state 
With even step and musing gait, 
And looks commercing with the skies, 
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes." 

Now, if this maiden can keep on holding her head up, 
with looks perpetually " commercing with the skies " so 
that it will be impossible for her to see all the tobacco- 
juice and apple-cores beneath and round about her, it 
will conduce greatly to her peace of mind. I am sorry 
that "the Pantheon of America" is not a cleaner looking 
place. It's a pity, as we have a Pantheon, that its shabbi- 
ness and dirt should nourish to a degree that is absolutely 
melancholy. I am sure it was in obedience to the law of 
fitness that the committee of the Congressional Library 
or some other committee, brought the Goddess of Melan- 
choly in here, to hold her eyes and nose aloft, and to 
stand supreme queen, regnant of dust and gloom and 
American " expectoration." " Hail ! divinest Melancholy." 
I am glad, judging by your face, that you are of the lym- 
phatic temperament, and that consequently, all this dirt 
will afflict you less than it does me. But the more I look 
at your impassive and soulless countenance the more I 



THE GODDESS OF MELANCHOLY. Ill 

fear that, after all, you are but a feeble counterfeit of 
Milton's goddess or of the divine maiden conceived and 
born in, 

" Woody, Ida's inmost grove." 

In speaking of this marble, my heart will not let me 
forget that it was wrought by a hand self-taught; yet no 
less, standing where it does, it must be measured — some- 
what, at least — by the standards of art. The figure, di- 
minutive even in its femininity, suffers to insignificance 
by being set almost directly behind the gaunt and elon- 
gated form of Miss Ream's "Lincoln;" yet it is in the 
figure, in its pose and gentle curves, its chaste and grace- 
ful drapery, "the stole of cypress lawn, over the decent 
shoulders drawn" in the firm yet delicate hand which 
holds it in its place — in these only it is that the artist has 
caught and fastened in stone the aspect of the " goddess, 
sage and holy." The face is meaningless. Not a line, 
not a curve, not an expression indicates a capacity for 
melancholy, contemplation or anything else emotional or 
intellectual. No mortal women ever really meditated 
for a minute who did not get her hair pushed back further 
from her eyes than this, but these regulation locks run 
straight down the little, senseless Greek face in a mathe- 
matical angle, inclissolubly banded by a little perked up 
helmet, embossed with seven stars. Why these stars? 
"11 Penserosa" was not nearly enough related to "that 
starred Ethiop queen" Cassiope, to have borrowed the 
helmet to wear even in the old Hall of the old House 
of Representatives "in the United States of America." 

As for the Ream statue of Lincoln, (like many people,) 
the first glance at it is the most satisfactory that you will 



112 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

ever have. It will never look as well again. Some de- 
clare this very palpable lack to be in the subject — Mr. 
Lincoln's own face and form — but many others note it to 
be in this representation of them. Mr. Lincoln's living 
face was one of the most interesting ever given to man. 
There was more than fascination in its rugged homeliness ; 
there was in it the deeper attraction of suffering and sym- 
pathy. It outrayed from every line engraven there by 
human pain and love and longing. But no soul can put 
into a statue or painting more than it has in itself. In 
this statue of Mr Lincoln we have his rude outward im- 
age, unilluminated by one mental or spiritual character- 
istic. It is mechanical, material, opaque. Mrs. Sarah 
Ames, in her bust of Lincoln, which stands just behind 
our friend, "II Penserosa," has transfixed more of the 
soul of Lincoln in the brow and eyes of his face than 
Miss Ream has in all the weary outline of her many feet 
of marble. In the bust the lower part of the face is ideal- 
ized into weakness. Without his gauntness and rugged- 
ness Lincoln is not Lincoln. But any one who ever saw 
and felt the deep, tender, sad outlook of his living hu- 
manity must thank Mrs. Ames for having reflected and 
transfixed it in the brows and eyes of this marble. 

Just outside of its alcove, at the right hand of the door 
which enters the New House of Representatives, stand 
side by side, the two statues from Rhode Island — one of 
General Green, the other of Roger Williams. That of 
General Green is spirited and exquisitely fine in detail; 
while that of Roger Williams is the one ideal statue in 
our Pantheon. Both were executed in Rome — the first 
by Henry R. Brown, the second by Franklin Simmons, 
of Providence, Rhode Island. No portrait of Roger Wil- 



PICTURESQUE ATTIRE. 113 

liams being in existence, Mr, Simmons lias evolved from 
imagination and his inner consciousness a quaint, poetic 
figure and a dreamlike face, above whose lifted eyelids 
seems to hover a seraphic smile. Then it is refreshing 
to turn from the stove-pipe hats, shingled heads and angu- 
lar garments in which the men of our generation do pen- 
ance, to the flowing locks, puckered knee-breeches, with 
their dainty tassels, and the ample ruffs in which the 
holy apostle of liberty represents his name and time. 
He holds a book in his hand, on whose cover is inscribed 
the words, " Soul Liberty," and, with open, uplifted glance 
and free pose seems about to step forward into air, with 
lips just ready to open with words of inspiration. 

Opposite, on the other side of the Hall, stand together 
Connecticut's contribution — the statues of Jonathan Trum- 
bull and Roger Sherman. They are of heroic size and at 
first glance are most imposing. When you walk nearer, 
and soberly survey them, you see that Roger Sherman 
looks solid and stolid, and you see also (at least, I do,) 
that old Jonathan Trumbull, with his down-perked head 
and narrow-lidded eyes, looks like a meditative rooster — 
an immense human chanticleer, who had paused in his 
lording career for a minute's meditation. Mind, I don't 
say but this may be a grand statue, in its way, I only ob- 
serve that it is a very repelling one to me. 

Just round the angle of the alcove on a box set on 
end, covered with tattered black cambric, stands a bust 
of Kosciusko, by H. D. Saunders. Poor Kosciusko ! His 
nose always needs wiping ; and what a pedestal for a 
Pantheon! A candle or a soap box, probably, half cov- 
ered with black tags; then on his nose celestial, the dust 
alights and lodges always. It is so provocative — the tip 



114 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

of it; every bumpkin who approaches it taps or pulls it. 
Thus, literally, Kosciusko's nose is seldom clean. One 
day it was. Some pitying hand had washed the entire 
face. If you could have seen the difference between 
Kosciusko clean and Kosciusko exiled, dirty and forlorn ! 
A few steps from this bust stands the statue of Alexander 
Hamilton, by Horatio Stone — a noble figure, spirited in 
posture and beautiful in countenance. No painted por- 
trait can give so grand an idea of the great Federalist to 
posterity. It is eight feet high and represents Hamilton 
in the attitude of impassioned speech. It is persuasive 
rather than declamatory, for the lifted hands droop, the 
face presses slightly forward, the eyes look out from un- 
der their royal arches deep and steadfast, while the sun- 
shine pouring down the dome lights up every lineament 
with the intensity of life. The execution of the statue is 
exquisite, while in pose and expression it is the embodi- 
ment of majesty and power. Burr — who presided over 
the Senate, who with the pride, subtlety and ambition of 
Lucifer, planned and executed to live in the future amid 
the most exalted names of his time — sleeps dishonored 
and accursed ; while the great rival that he hated, whose 
success he could not bear, whose life he destroyed, comes 
back in this majestic semblance to abide in the Capitol. 
Thus we behold in this statue not only a " triumph of 
art " but also a triumph of that final retributive compen- 
sation of justice which sooner or later crushes every 
wron<jr This imace of Hamilton looks forth from an era 
which, across the gulf of our later revolution, seems al- 
ready remote. It recalls Washington the friend, Jeffer- 
son the foe, the war of Colonist and Tory, the war of 
ideas between Federalist and Republican, the struggles 



PROPHETIC SPEECH OF BAKER. 115 

and successes of a splendid career ; yet how far removed 
seem all across the graves of the men of our own genera- 
tion whom patriotism and death have made illustrious and 
immortal. Thus nearer and dearer to the hearts of to- 
day must be the image of "the noblest Roman of them 
all." It is a statue of Baker, also executed by Horatio 
Stone, in Rome, in 1863. Hamilton stands forth in heroic 
size, while the statue of Baker is under that of life, and 
barely suggests the grand proportions of the man. Yet 
the dignity and grandeur of his mien are here, as he 
stands wrapped in his cloak, his arms folded, his head 
thrown back, his noble face lifted as if he saw the 
future — his future — and awaited it undaunted and with 
a joyful heart. At his side is the plumed hat of a soldier, 
and on the pedestal on which he stands are graven words 
from his last speech in the United States Senate, when 
he replied to Breckenridge, "There will be some graves 
reeking with blood, watered by the tears of affection. 
There will be some privation. There will be some loss 
of luxury; there will be somewhat more need of labor 
to procure the necessaries of life. When that is said, all 
is said. If we have the country, the whole country, 
the Union, the constitution, free government — with these 
will return all the blessings of a well ordered civilization. 
The path of the country will be a course of grandeur and 
glory such as our fathers in the olden time foresaw in 
the dim visions of years to come — such as would have 
been ours to-day, had it not been for the treason for 
which the senator too often seeks to apologize." 

Thus to the land he loved he gave his life — a life so 
rich in every quality that rounds and completes the high- 
est manhood. 



116 TEX YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

At siorht of this mute marble, what memories are stir- 
red ! Again, in and around Union Square throbs the vast 
human mass. Banners wave, cannons boom, drums 
beat, men march. Every pulse of the air thrills with the 
cry, " To Arms ! " Amid all the orators of that hour, 
whose voice uttered such burning words as Baker — he 
who left the seat of a senator for the grave of a soldier. 
Thank God for our dead who yet live. No land has a 
more priceless legacy. No soil was ever planted with 
richer blood. No freedom ever bought with a costlier vic- 
tory. Let me tell you, public men, amid all your lavish 
expenditures of money wrung from the people, never be- 
grudge the price you pay for the fit statue of a great char- 
acter. Line the corridors of the Capitol with the images of 
the noble and the good, that, by suggestion and semblance, 
they may arouse to a purer purpose the emulation of the 
living. In these halls where lobbyists congregate, where 
money-changers stand with shameless faces offering their 
venal price for truth and honor, buying and selling the 
integrity of manhood, give to our eyes at least the mem- 
ories of high example. If men in the rush of affairs and 
the absorption of their ambitions take no time to study 
them, thoughtful women will pause and ponder, and then 
teach the children who are to rule after us to love and re- 
member. 

I look on these statues and think of the man who 
wrought them — think of him as I saw him every day six 
years ago, a pale, dissatisfied, restless man, whose hands 
were busy with uncongenial tasks, but whose brain was 
haunted with noble ideals, to which he was powerless to 
give form or substance. Opportunity, the ultimate test 
of all power, came to him and at last Congress voted ten 



WHY WASHINGTON "NEVER WAS NAUGHTY." 117 

thousand dollars to Horatio Stone to execute the statue 
of Alexander Hamilton in Rome. And, lo ! the intang- 
ible vision of the weary man is embodied in imperishable 
marble — the most majestic statue beneath the dome of the 
Capitol. A little way before it is a plaster cast, mounted 
high on a wooden block, of Houdin's bronze figure of 
Washington, the original of which is in the State Capitol 
at Richmond, Virginia. Such a peaked-headed, idiotic- 
looking Washington I never saw elsewhere. If he looked 
like this, it is perfectly plain why he passed through life 
without ever once having done anything naughty. But 
if he did look like this he was a stupid mortal to live 
with. Most of the marbles of our Pantheon are poorly set. 
Even the seraphic apostle of "soul liberty" stands on a 
box covered with cinnamon-colored cambric, and his mar- 
tial brother does likewise. Abraham Lincoln is ensconced 
within an unpainted wooden fence, and the great lawgiv- 
ers of Connecticut stand in their big cloaks upon cotton 
covered boxes. Mrs. Ames' bust of" Lincoln " is poised on 
a handsome pedestal of Scotch granite ; but, with few ex- 
ceptions, though not utterly barren of fine marbles, the 
present aspect of the American Pantheon is chiefly sug- 
gestive of crudeness, shabbiness, and — the exorbitant ne- 
cessity of spittoons. Over the entrance is a clock, hav- 
ing for its dial the wheels of a winged car, resting on 
a globe. In this car sits a lady called History, with a 
scroll and pen in hand. Oh! the story she could tell 
if she could tell the truth. Opposite, twenty-four Corin- 
thian columns of variegated Potomac marble shoot to the 
roof, and shadow what was once the gallery of the Old 
Hall of Representatives. In the centre stands a horrid- 
looking plaster image of Liberty, modeled by Cansici; 



118 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

and under it the American bird, modeled from life and 
cut in sandstone by Volaperti. Besides, scattered about 
are portraits of Henry Clay, a mosaic portrait of Lincoln, 
by Signor Salviato of Venice, of Charles Carroll of Car- 
rollton, and of Joshua Giddings. 

I have meant to pass nothing over that graces or dis- 
graces our American Pantheon, that you, afar, may see it 
as it is. In itself it is the most majestic room in the 
Capitol. Set apart to enshrine the sculptured forms of 
illustrious dead, already its arches and alcoves are fraught 
with their living memoirs. Here Webster spoke, here 
Clay presided, here Adams died. 

It is modeled from the Roman Pantheon, and its roof, 
at least, is like it. We have no proof that the Roman 
Pantheon was set apart for such a purpose as that to 
which our own is dedicated ; indeed, in the beginning 
it was supposed to be connected with the Roman baths. 
To-day it is chiefly sacred to art as the burial-place 
of Raphael. The French Pantheon, also, was compar- 
atively poor in statues, though boasting of immense 
compositions in painting, by David and Gros. Herein 
the great men who have illustrated France appear in 
the forms of Fenelon, Malesherbes, Mirabeau, Voltaire, 
Rousseau, Lafayette, and others ; while at their feet, as 
befits their sex, sit History and Liberty, properly en> 
ployed making wreaths for the heads of these mascu- 
line heroes. From the dome look down Clovis, Charle- 
magne, St. Louis, Louis XIV., XVI., XVII., Marie An- 
toinette, Madame Elizabeth, with a central glory to rep- 
resent Deity. The dome of our own rotunda is a florid 
imitation of this. We have Franklin, Washington, and 
troops of goddesses, who look like bar-maids; but from 



COMING GLORY OF THE FUTURE. 119 

the focal apex we have omitted God, whose eye is needed 
for such an assembly. 

The magnificent facade which leads to the Houses of 
Parliament in Westminster Palace is nine hundred feet 
long, paneled with tracery and decorated with rows of 
majestic statues of the kings and queens of England, from 
the conquest to the present time. Let us hope that it will 
never be defiled from beginning to end, as our own magnifi- 
cent legislative halls, with tobacco-juice from the mouths 
of demoralized men. The earth has never had but one 
absolutely perfect building, in itself the final consummate 
flower of art — the Parthenon — consecrated first to woman, 
the Virgin House, sacred to Athena. Beneath its pure 
and perfect dome there was nothing to divert the gazer's 
contemplation from the simplicity and majesty of mass 
and outline. The whole building, without and within, 
was filled with the most exquisite pieces of sculpture, 
executed under the guidance of Phidias. The grand cen- 
tral figure was the colossal statue of the Virgin Goddess, 
wrought by the hand of Phidias himself. The weight of 
gold which she carried, says Thucydides, was forty talents. 
Could a wooden fence guard so much gold in our Christian 
Pantheon to-day ? It was a happy thought which dedi- 
cated this old hall of the nation to national art, but it far 
outleaped its century. That which shall truly be the 
Pantheon of America is not for us. The children of later 
generations, a far-off procession, may come up hither to 
worship the diviner forms of the future, the majestic 
statues of the nation's best — its sons grand in manhood, 
its daughters divine in w 7 omanhood ; but, with here and 
there a rare exception, our eyes who live to-day will see 
them not. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WOMEN WITH CLAIMS. 

The Senate Reception Room — The People Who Haunt It — Republican 
"Ladies in Waiting" — "Women with Claims" — Their Heroic Persist- 
ency — A Widow and Children in Distress — Claim Agents — The Com- 
mittee of Claims — A Kind-hearted Senator's Troubles — Buttonholing 
a Senator — A Lady of Energy — Resolved to Win — An " Office Brok- 
eress" — A Dragon of a Woman — A Lady who is Feared if not Re- 
spected — Her Unfortunate Victims — Carrying "Her Measure" — The 
Beautiful Petitioner — The Cloudy Side of her Character — Her Subtle 
Dealings — Her Successes — How Government Prizes are Won. 

THE room itself means only grace, beauty and silence. 
The moment had not come for dis-illusion, thus I 
went forth without a word regarding its human aspect. 
To-day, dear friends, we will go in and face that. We 
sit down in the shadow of this Corinthian pillar, and, look- 
ing out see the most noticeable fact is that this lofty 
apartment is thronged with women. A number are con- 
versing with senators ; others are gazing toward the doors 
which lead into the Senate. Some seem to be waiting 
with eager eyes and anxious faces ; others are leaning 
back upon the sofas in attitudes of luxurious listlessness. 
Do you ask why they are here ? Are they studying the 
stately proportions and exquisite finesse of the ante- 
room? Not at all. It is not devotion to the aesthetic 
arts nor the inspiration of patriotism, which brings these 
women thither. They are a few, only a very few, of the 



WAITING AND WEARY. 121 

women — with "claims," who, through the sessions of 
Congress haunt the departments, the White House and 
the Capitol. 

The dejected looking woman on the sofa opposite is a 
widow, with numerous small children. You may be cer- 
tain by the unhopeful expression of her face that it is her 
own claim which, almost unaided and alone, she is trying 
to " work through " Congress. Her home is far distant. 
She borrowed money to come here, she borrows money 
to support her children, money to pay her own board; 
borrows money to pay the exorbitant fees of the claim- 
agent, who, constantly fanning the flame of "great ex- 
pectations," assures her every day that Congress will pay 
her the thousands which she demands for her losses — will 
pay her this very session. Meantime the session is al- 
most ended, and the widow's claim, on which hangs such 
a heavy load of debt and fear, lies hidden and forgotten 
in the pigeon-hole of the Committee of Claims. While 
it lies there, gathering dust, she a cheaply clad, care- 
faced woman, no longer young, and never pretty, has 
grown to be most bfcrdensome to Senator , espe- 
cially to the chairman of that committee. Irksome, not 
to be desired, is the importunate presence of this forlorn 
woman. No less irksome to these functionaries is the 
sight of her hundred sisters in distress — more or less; 
poor widows, with small children, with personal claims 
upon the Government. The chairman dreads the sight 
of this woman and of her like. He dreads it the more 
that he is perfectly certain that her case is not reached, 
and will not be this session. A kind-hearted man, he is 
unwilling to set the seal of despair on her face by telling 
her the truth. She finds it out at last, and then remem- 



122 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

bering all his evasions, in her disappointment and hopeless 
poverty, she denounces him as "deceitful and heartless," 
whereas the honorable gentleman was only trying to be 
kind. Meanwhile the Senate' is too much interested in 
immense claims involving millions, to be paid out of the 
National Treasury, too much absorbed in the discussion 
of the universal, to be able' to come down to the small 
particular of a poor widow, with hungry children, whose 
only heritage was lost in the war. In time, whose 
cycles may be as long as those of the Circumlocution Of- 
fice and the Court of Chancery — but some time, when 
the widow has borrowed and spent more money than the 
whole claim is worth, it may be investigated, and full or 
partial justice done. In either case, it will take more 
than she receives to pay the many expenses which she 
has incurred during her long years of waiting. Do 3011 
wonder that her face looks doleful while she waits for 

Senator to come in to answer her card, sent 

into the Senate Chamber. Here he is and we can hear 
what he says, " I am very sorry, Madame ; but it has 
grown to be too late. I fear that Jour case can not be 
reached this session." Poor woman. It would have been 
better for you to have staid at home, kept out of debt, 
worked with your hands to have supported your children. 
That would have been a hard life, but not so hard as the 
mortification, suspense, and defeat of this, and the long 
years of labor after all. 

See that sharp-faced woman, with darting, prying eyes. 
She rushes in one door and out of another. She hurries 
back. She meets a senator, and " button-holes him," 
after the fashion of men, and begins conversing in the 
most importunate manner. He makes a retreat. Lo ! in 



A WOMAN TO BE FEARED. 123 

a moment she attacks another, leading him triumphantly 
to a sofa, where we witness a tete-a-tete, on the feminine 
side, carried on with marked emphasis and much gesticu- 
lation. This woman not only has one claim in Congress, 
she has many, and not one her own. She is a claim- 
agent, an office-brokeress. She buys claims, and specu- 
lates in them as so much stock. She takes claims on 
commission, deluding many a poor victim into the belief 
that "my influence" and "my friends," Senator So-and- 
So and Secretary P. Policy, will insure it a triumphant 
passage and a remunerative end, tf without -fail.'* It is 
not strange, through sheer pertinacity and by dint of end- 
less worrying, she often succeeds. She is purely feline in 
her tactics — ever alert, watchful, wary, cunning, and so 
she worries her victims and wins. She is one of the 
world's disappointed, dissatisfied ones; so, more than all 
else, we will be sorry for her. What God meant to be a 
fair life has been striven away in one weary struggle for 
the worldly honor and conventional prestige lying just 
above her reach. And to her the most pleasurable ex- 
citement in all the claim profession is the delusion that 
it affords her of personal power and of association with the 
great ! 

Pardon me, good friends, for calling a name. I must 
call it, for it is true. Here comes a very dragon of a 
woman. I am as afraid of her as if she had horns. I was 
going to say that she was a man-woman, which is the 
greatest monstrosity of the genus feminine. But I honor 
my brethren too much for such a comparison, and so will 
simply say — in manners, she is a dragon. The men whom 
she seizes must think so ; they give her her way, because 
they are afraid of her. Too well they know that, if they 



124 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

do not yield her point — if they do not at least promise 
her their influence — if they do not assure her that they 
will do all in their power to carry "her measure" — that 
she will attack them in the street, in the legislative lobbies, 
in the quiet of their lodgings, everywhere, anywhere, till 
they do. She is no covert power. She proclaims aloud 
that she has come to Washington to carry a measure 
through Congress to establish some man in power. And 
she does it because her tongue is a scourge and her pres- 
ence a fear. 

Leaning back in a chair, no one near her, you see a fair 
woman, whose beautiful presence seems at variance with 
the many anxious and angular and the few coarse women 
around her. The calmness of assured position, the serene 
satisfaction of conscious beauty, envelop her and float 
from her like an atmosphere. We feel it even here. 
Plumes droop above her forehead, velvet draperies fall 
about her form. We catch a glimpse of laces, the gleam 
of jewels. Look long into her face ; its splendor of tint 
and perfection of outline can bear the closest scrutiny. 
Look long, and then say if a soul saintly as well as serene 
looks out from under those penciled arches, through the 
dilating irises of those beguiling eyes. Look, and the 
unveiled gaze which meets yours will tell you, as plainly 
as a gaze can tell, that adulation is the life of its life, and 
seduction the secret of its spell. This beauty would not 
blanch before the profanest sight ; it is the beauty of one 
who tunes her tongue to honeyed accents, and lifts up her 
eyelids to lead men down to death. She comes and goes 
in a showy carriage. She glides through the corridors, 
haunts the galleries and the ante-rooms of the Capitol — 
everywhere conspicuous in her beauty. All who behold 



HOW PLACE AND POWER* ARE WON. 125 

her inquire, Who is that beautiful woman ? Nobody 
seems quite sure. Doubt and mystery envelop her like 
a cloud. "She is a rich and beautiful widow/' "She is 
unmarried/' " She is visiting the city with her husband." 
Every gazer has a different answer. There are a few, 
deep in the secrets of diplomacy, of legislative venality, 
of governmental prostitution, who can tell you she is one 
of the most subtle and most dangerous of lobbyists. She 
is but one of a class always beautiful and always success- 
ful. She plays for large stakes, but she always wins. The 
man who says to her, " Secure my appointment, make sure 
my promotion, and I will pay you so many thousands," 
usually gets his appointment, and she her thousands. Does 
she wait like a suppliant ? Not at all. She sits like an 
empress waiting to give audience. Will she receive her 
subjects in promiscuous assemblage ? No ; if you wait 
long enough you will see her glide over these tessellated 
floors, but not alone. Far from the ears of the crowd, in 
rooms sumptuous enough for the Sybarites, this woman 
will dazzle the sight of a half demented and wholly be- 
wildered magnate, and then tell him what prize she 
wants. With alluring eyes and beguiling voice she 
will besiege his will through the outworks of his senses, 
and so charm him on to do her bidding. He promises 
her his influence ; he promises her his power ; her fa- 
vorite shall have the boon he demands, whether it be of 
emolument or power. 

Thus some of the highest prizes in the Government 
are won. Unscrupulous men pay wily women to touch 
the subtlest and surest springs of influence, and thus 
open a secret way to their public success. No longer 
the question is : Shall women participate in politics ? 



126 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

shall they form a controlling element in the Govern- 
ment ? But, as there are women who will and do exert 
this power, shall it remain abject, covert, equivocal, de- 
moralizing, base ? Or shall it be brave and pure and 
open as the sun ? 



CHAPTER Xni. 

THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY. 

Inside the Library — The Librarian — Sketch of Mr. Spofford — How Congres- 
sional Speeches are Manufactured — " Spofford " in Congress — The Li- 
brary Building — Diagram— Dimensions of the Hall — The Iron Book 
Cases — The Law Library — Five Miles of Book Shelves — Silent Study — 
"Abstracting " Books — Amusing Adventure — A Senator in a Quandary — 
Making Love under Difficulties — Library Regulations — Privileged Per- 
sons — Novels and their Readers — Books of Reference — Cataloguing the 
Library — The New Classification — Compared with the British Museum — 
Curious Old Newspapers — Files of Domestic and Foreign Papers — One 
Hundred Defunct Journals — Destruction of the Library by English 
Troops — An Incident of the War of 1814 — Putting it to the Vote — " Car- 
ried Unanimously " — Wanton Destruction — Washington in Flames — A 
Fearful Tempest — The Second Conflagration — 35,000 Volumes De- 
stroyed — Treasures of Art Consumed — Congressional Grants — The New 
Library — Extensive Additions — The Next Appropriation — The Grand 
Library of the Nation. 



THE most remarkable fact of the present connected 
with the Congressional Library., is its Librarian,, Mr. 
Ainsworth R. Spofford. 

Mr. Spofford was appointed Assistant Librarian by 
President Lincoln, December 31, 1S64, and upon the 
resignation of Mr. Stephenson the same month succeeded 
him as Librarian. Mr. Spofford was formerly connected 
with the secular press of Cincinnati, Ohio, and was also 
engaged in the book trade in the same city. But neither 
fact accounts for his almost unlimited practical knowledge 
of books of every age and in every language. He is him- 



128 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

self a vast library in epitome. If you wish to inform 
yourself upon any subject under the sun, if you have any 
right or privilege to inform Mr. SpofTord of that fact, in 
five minutes you will have placed before you a list, writ- 
ten down rapidly from memory, of the best works extant 
upon the subject named, and in as few moments as it will 
take to find them, and draw them forth from their dusty 
nests, you will have them all heaped on a table before 
you, ready for your search and research, and all the head- 
aches they will be sure to give you. 

Mr. SpofTord has the credit among experts of writing 
many Congressional speeches for honorable gentlemen 
whose verbs and nominatives by chronic habit disagree, 
and whose spelling-books were left very far behind them, 
but who nevertheless are under the imperative necessity 
of writing learned speeches of which their dear constitu- 
ents may boast and be proud. By the way, a lady in pri- 
vate life in Washington, — a scholar and caustic writer,— 
used to earn all her pin money, before her ship of fortune 
came in, by writing, in the solitude of her room, the 
learned, witty and sarcastic speeches which were thun- 
dered in Congress the next day, by some Congressional Ju- 
piter, who could not have launched such a thunder-bolt to 
have saved his soul had it not been first forged and elec- 
trified by a woman. The Librarian of Congress is too 
much absorbed by his routine labors to have much time 
or strength to spare for the writing out of Congressional 
speeches. But daily and almost hourly he suggests and 
supplies the materials for such speeches. When a mem- 
• ber whose erudition is not remarkable, stands up in his 
seat, backing every sentence he utters on finance, law 
or politics, by great authority, more than one mentally 



THE SECRET FIRE OF MANY SPEECHES. 



129 



exclaims, " Spofford ! " We know where he has been. 
Mr. Spofford is a slight gentleman in the prime of life, of 
nervous temperament with very straight, smooth hair, 
classic features and a placid countenance. Always a 
gentleman, his patience and urbanity are inexhaustible, 
if you have the slightest claim upon his care. If you 
have not, and he has no intention of being " bothered," 
his " shoo fly " capabilities are equally effectual. Like 
most book-people, Mr. Spofford's nervous life far outruns 
his material forces. He needs more sunshine, air and 
out-of-door existence, as most Americans do. Therefore 
I here cast him a crumb of sisterly counsel, born of grati- 
tude and selfishness. Spend more time on the Rock 
Creek and Piney Branch roads, on the hills and by the 
sea, Mr. Spofford. Then may you live long, prosper, and 
grow wiser, for the sake of my books, and everybody's ! 
The halls of the Library of Congress are among the 
most chaste, unique and indestructible of all the halls of 
the Capitol. The Library occupies the entire central 
portion of the western front of the original Capitol. The 
west hall extends the entire length of the western front 
flanked by two other halls, one on the north the other on 
the south side of the projection. 

DIAGRAM OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 





Vestibule. 




a 


Door. 


■a 
n 

3 
o 

CD 




fc 


West Hall of Library. 



13 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

The west hall which a few years since made the whole 
Library, is 91 feet 6 inches in length, 34 feet wide and 
38 feet high, the other two halls of the same hight are 
29 feet 6 inches wide and 95 feet long. The halls are 
lighted by windows looking out upon the grounds of 
the Capitol and by roof lights of stained glass. The 
ceiling is iron and glass, and rests on foliated iron brack- 
ets each weighing a ton. The pilasters and panels are of 
iron painted a neutral hue tinged with pale green and 
burnished with gold leaf. The floors are of tessellated 
black and white marble. The iron book-cases on either 
side rise story on story, floored with cast-iron plates, pro- 
tected by railings, and traversed by light galleries. In- 
cluding the Law Library, these halls contain 26,148 feet, 
or nearly five miles of book-shelving, and contain over 
210,000 volumes. The iron floors are covered with 
kamjrfulicon floor cloth, a compound of India-rubber and 
cork, which possesses the triple advantage of being clean, 
light and cheap. The leg of every chair has a pad of 
solid India-rubber under it. Nobody is allowed to speak 
above a whisper ; thus the stolid turning, or the light flut- 
ter of leaves make the only sound which stirs the silence. 
Alcove after alcove line the halls, but with the excep- 
tion of two devoted to novels and other light reading, 
left open for the ladies of members' families, they are 
all securely locked and protected by a net-work of wire, 
and thus the chance of pilfering and of flirting are both 
shut in behind that securely fastened little padlock. 

Before the era of locking up, many books were 
" abstracted" from the Library and never returned. 
And it is said that the alcoves were used during the ses- 
sions of Congress by the belles of the Capitol for recep- 



LOYE IN THE LIBRARY. 131 

tion rooms in which they received homage and listened 
to marriage proposals. The story is told of "a wealthy 
Southern representative gleaning materials for a speech 
in an upper section," who was suddenly stopped in his 
pursuit after knowledge above by the knowledge ascend- 
ing from below that "a penniless adventurer" was that 
moment persuading his pretty daughter to elope in the 
alcove under him. It did not take the parent long to de- 
scend into that alcove. The daughter did not elope. 

The halls are lined with wide tables and arm-chairs 
provided for all who wish to make use of the treasures 
of the Library. Tickets with blanks can be filled with 
the name of any book desired, over the signature of the 
applicant, who retains the book while remaining in the 
Library. On the back of those tickets are printed the 
following regulations of the Library : 

1. Visitors are requested to remove their hats, 

2. No loud talking is permitted, 

3. No readers under sixteen years of age are permitted. 

4. No book can be taken from the Library. 

5. Readers are required to present tickets, for all books 
wanted, and to return their books and take back their tickets 
before leaving the Library. 

6. No reader is allowed to enter the alcoves. 

No books can be taken out of the Library except on 
the responsibility of a member of Congress. Till within 
a very few years, books were allowed to be taken by 
strangers who presented a written permit to do so from 
a Congressional official. This courtesy resulted in the 
destruction and loss of so many valuable works, it had to 
be abolished and the stringent rules of the present time 



132 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

established and strictly enforced. An act of Congress 
provided that books can be taken out of the Library only 
by the President of the United States, Members of the 
Cabinet, Judges of the United States Supreme Court, 
Members of the Senate and House of Representatives, 
Secretary of the Senate, Clerk of the House and mem- 
bers of the Diplomatic Corps. This privilege of course 
includes the families of these official gentlemen. 

Forgetting this fact, the long list of story-books and 
new novels often " charged" to these State names would 
be something ridiculous. Dealers in light literature suffer 
somewhat from this privilege. The copyright law and 
the Congressional Library together provide society and 
State with all the surface literature that they want during 
their sojourn in "Washington. For reference the books 
are most extensively and thoroughly used by all seekers 
after knowledge. American and foreign authors line the 
tables in these quiet halls daily, and the results of their 
research are usually given to the world. Legal, political, 
and historical works are the ones most constantly called 
for and searched. 

From 1815 to 1864 the Library was catalogued on the 
system adopted by Mr. Jefferson according to Bacon's 
Division of Science. This classification adapted to a small 
library was inadequate to the necessities of thousands of 
consulting readers. Mr. Spoffbrd, on his advent as Libra- 
rian, went to Avork to simplify the system. The result was 
a complete catalogue of all the books in the great Library 
arranged alphabetically under the heads of authors. A 
proof of the perfection of this arrangement is, that any 
book hidden in the farthest corner of the most distant 
alcove is handed to a reader at the tables within five 



BARBARIANS AT WASHINGTON. 133 

minutes after his application, while in the British Museum 
he would do well if he got it in the space of half an hour. 

Till the reign of Mr. Spofford, newspapers, as valuable 
documentary history, had almost been ignored by the 
guardians of the Library. This great defect Mr. Spofford 
has done much to eradicate and remeclv. Files of all the 
leading New York dailies are now regularly kept. Some 
unbroken files have been secured, including those of the 
New York Evening Post, from its beginning in 1801, the 
London Gazette from 1665, the French Moniteur (Royal, 
Imperial, and Republican,) from 1789, the Illustrated 
London Neics, the Almanac de Gotha from 1776, and a 
complete set of every newspaper ever published in the 
District of Columbia, including over one hundred now 
no more. Before the last progressive regime, even after 
Congress had appropriated $75,000 for the replenishing 
of the Library, the entire national collection did not con- 
tain a modern encyclopedia, or a file of a New York daily 
newspaper, or of any newspaper except the venerable 
Washington National Intelligencer. De Bow's Review 
was the only American magazine taken, " but the Lon- 
don Court Journal was regularly received, and bound at 
the close of each successive year ! " 

The Congressional Library is the only one in the 
world utterly fire-proof, without an atom of wood or of 
any combustible material in its miles of shelving. Before 
it attained to this indestructible state it suffered much. 
First from the British. On the evening of August 24, 
1814, after the battle of Bladensburg, General Ross led 
his victorious troops into the Federal City. As they ap- 
proached the Capitol a shot was fired by a man concealed 
in a house on Capitol Hill. The shot was aimed at the 



134 TEN YEAES IX WASHINGTON. 

British general, but only killed his horse. The enraged 
Britons immediately set fire to the house which contained 
the sharp-shooter, who, it is said, was a club-footed gar- 
dener-barber Irishman. The unmanageable troops were 
drawn up in front of the unfinished Capitol, a wooden 
scaffolding, occupying the place of the Rotunda, joining 
the two wings. They first fired a volley into the windows 
and then entered the building to prepare it for destruc- 
tion. Admiral Cockburn ascended to the Speaker's chair, 
and derisively exclaimed : 

" Shall this harbor of Yankee Democracy be burned ? 
All for it say <Aye!"* 

It was carried unanimously, and the torch of the Eng- 
lishman applied to the hard-earned treasures of the young 
Republic. The Library of Congress, used as lighting pa- 
per, was entirely destroyed. With it, two pictures of na- 
tional value were burned ; portraits of Louis XVI. and 
Marie Antoinette, which, richly framed, had been sent to 
the United States Government in Philadelphia, by the 
unfortunate French King. 

While the Capitol was burning, clouds and columns of 
fire and smoke were ascending from the President's 
house and all the other public buildings of the young 
city. The conflagration below was dulled by the confla- 
gration above; one of the most dreadful storms of thun- 
der and lightning ever known in Washington, met and 
lighted on the British invaders, dimming and quenching 
their malicious fires. 

In 1851 the magnificent new library-room of the Central 
Capitol, which now held 55,000 volumes and many works 
of art, was discovered to be on fire. The destruction was 
immense. Thirty-five thousand volumes were destroyed. 



THE LIBRARY IN FLAMES. 135 

Among the valuable pictures burned at the same time were 
Stuart's paintings of the first five Presidents ; an original 
portrait of Columbus ; a second portrait of Columbus ; 
an original portrait of Peyton Randolph ; a portrait of 
Boliver ; a portrait of Baron Steuben ; one of Baron de 
Kalb ; one of Cortez, and one of Judge Hanson, of Mary- 
land, presented by his family. Between eleven and twelve 
hundred bronze medals of the Vattemare Exchange, some 
of them more than two centuries old, were destroyed ; 
also, an Apollo in bronze, by Mills; a very superior 
bronze likeness of Washington ; a bust of General Taylor, 
by an Italian artist ; and a bust of Lafayette, by David. 

The divisions of Natural History, Geography, and 
Travels, English and European History, Poetry, Fiction, 
and the Mechanic Arts and Fine Arts were all burned. 
The whole of the Law Library escaped the fire. 

It indicates the intellectual vitality of the nation that 
an appropriation of $10,000 was immediately made for 
the restoration of the Library, and by the close of the 
year $75,000 more for the same purpose. 

Like most beginnings, that of the Congressional Library 
was humble in the extreme. The first provision for this 
great National collection was made at Philadelphia by an 
act of the Sixth Congress, April 24, 1800, appropriating 
$5,000 for a suitable apartment and the purchase of 
books for the use of both Houses of Congress. The first 
books received were forwarded to the new seat of Govern- 
ment in the trunks in which they had been imported. 
President Jefferson, from its inception, an ardent friend 
of the Library, called upon the Secretary of the Senate, 
Samuel Allyne Otis, to make a statement on the first day 
of the session, December 7, 1801, respecting the books, 



136 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

the act of Congress having provided that the Secretary of 
the Senate, with the Clerk of House of Representatives, 
should be the purchasers of the books. The Congressional 
provision for the Library in 1806 was $450.00. 

In a report made by Doctor Samuel Latham Mitchell 
from New York to the House, January 20, 1806, he says: 

" Every week of the session causes additional regret that the 
volumes of literature and science within the reach of the Na- 
tional Legislature are not more rich and ample. The want of 
geographical illustration is truly distressing, and the deficiency 
of historical and political works is scarcely less severely felt." 

President Madison always exercised a fostering care 
over the Library and an act approved by him, December 
6, 1811, appropriates, for five additional years, the sum of 
one thousand dollars annually for its use. 

The whole number of books accumulated in fourteen 
years, from 1800 to 1814, amounted only to about three 
thousand volumes. The growth of the Library may be 
traced in the relative sums appropriated to its benefit 
by successive Congresses. In 1818, $2,000 were appro- 
priated for the purchase of books. From 1820 to 1823, 
$6,000 were voted to buy books. 

In 1824, $5,000 were appropriated for the purchase of 
books under the Joint Committee; also $1,546 for the 
purchase of furniture for the new Library in the centre 
building of the Capitol. 

The yearly appropriation for the increase of the Li- 
brary, for many successive years after the accession of 
General Jackson, w r as $5,000 ; these were exclusive of 
the appropriations made for the Law Department of the 
Library. In 1832 an additional appropriation of $3,000 



NATIONAL PURCHASES. 137 

was made for Library furniture and repairs. In 1850 
the annual appropriation of $1,000 to purchase books 
for the Law Library was increased to $2,000. Within a 
year of the burning of the Library in 1851, $S5,0#0 had 
been voted by Congress for the restoration of the Library 
and the purchase of books. 

"The west hall of the New Library was completed and 
occupied July 1, 1853. It was designed by Thomas A. 
Walter, the architect of the Capitol. The appropriation 
for miscellaneous books alone in the years 1865 and I860 
amounted to $16,000. In 1866, $1,500 were set apart 
for procuring files of leading American newspapers, and 
the sum of $4,000 was voted June 25, 1864, to purchase 
a complete file of selections from European periodicals 
from 1861 to 1864 relating to the Rebellion in the Uni- 
ted States. July 23, 1866, the amount of $10,000 was 
voted by Congress for furniture for the two wings of the 
extension. The present magnificent halls of the Library 
of Congress were built at an expense of $280,500. The 
main hall cost $93,500, and the other two halls $187,000. 
The last two have been built under the superintendence 
of Mr. Edward Clark. Beautiful and ample as these three 
halls are in themselves, they are already too small to 
hold the rapidly accumulating treasures of the Library. 
The next appropriation will take the Congressional 
Library out of the Capitol altogether into a magnificent 
building, built expressly for and devoted exclusively 
to the uses of the Grand Library of the Nation. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
A VISIT TO THE NEW LAW LIBRAKY. 

How a Library was Offered to Congress — Mr. King's Proposal — An Eye to 
Theology — The Smithsonian Library Transferred — The Good Deeds of 
Peter Force — National Documents — "American Archives" — Congress 
Makes a Wise Purchase — Eliot's Indian Bible — Literary Treasures — The 
Lawyers Want a Library for Themselves — Their " Little Bill " Fails to 
Pass — They are Finally Successful — The Finest Law Library in the 
World — First Edition of Blackstone — Report of the Trial of Cagliostro, 
Rohan and La Motte — Marie Antoinette's Diamond Necklace — A Long 
Life-Service — The Law Library Building — An Architect Buried Be- 
neath his own Design — " Underdone 1'ie-crust " — " Justice" Among the 
Books — Reminiscence of Daniel Webster and the Girard Will. 

A LITTLE more than a month after the burning of 
the Library by the British in 1814, a letter was 
read in the Senate, from Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, 
tendering to Congress the purchase of his library of nine 
thousand volumes. 

The collection of this library had been the delight of 
Mr. Jefferson's life, and, long before, he had written of it 
as " the best chosen collection of its size probably in 
America." Pecuniary embarrassments had already begun 
to cloud his closing years, and the double hope of reliev- 
ing these, and of adding to the treasures of his beloved 
Republic, impelled him to this personal sacrifice. In his 
letter to the Committee he said : 

" I should be willing indeed to retain a few of the books to 
amuse the time I have yet to pass, which might be valued with 



A LIBRARY COLLECTED BY FORCE. 139 

the rest, but not included in the sum of valuation until they 
should be restored at my death, which I would cheerfully pro- 
vide for." 

The sum of $23,950 in Treasury notes, of the issue 
ordered by the law of March 4, 1814, was paid him. The 
actual number of volumes thus acquired was 6,700. Al- 
though a Mr. King, of Massachusetts, more burdened with 
zeal than knowledge, made a motion which called out a 
loud and long debate, that all books of an atheistical, 
irreligious, and immoral tendency should be extirpated 
from the Library and sent back to Mr. Jefferson, the de- 
partment of Theology in his library w r as found to be large, 
sound, and valuable. 

In 1866 the custody of the Library of the Smithsonian 
Institution, with the agreement of the Regents, was trans- 
ferred to the Library of Congress. It brought forty 
thousand additional volumes to the Congressional Library. 

When you come to Washington, you will see in the gal- 
lery of the Smithsonian Institution the bust of a noble man 
standing on a simple plaster column, bearing the name 
Peter Force. He, during his life, did more than any one 
American to rescue from oblivion the early documentary 
history of the United States. He came from his native 
city, New York, to Washington, as a printer, in 1815. In 
1820 he began the publication of the National Calendar, 
an annual volume of national statistics, and also published 
the National Journal, the Administration organ during 
the Presidency of John Quincy Adams. In 1833 the 
Government entered into a contract with Mr. Force to 
prepare and publish a " Documentary History of the 
American Colonies." Nine volumes subsequently ap- 
peared under the title of the "American Archives." In 



140 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

preparing this work, Mr. Force gathered a collection of 
books, manuscripts, and papers relating to American His- 
tory, unequalled by any private collection in the world. 
At the request of the Joint Library Committee of the 
Thirty-ninth Congress, Mr. Spofford, the Librarian, entered 
into a thorough examination of the Force Library. After 
spending from two to three hours per day on it for two 
months, he presented to Congress an exhaustive classified 
report of its treasures, which resulted in the purchase of 
the entire Force Library by the Joint Library Committee 
for the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, the sum 
offered by the New York Historical Society for the same 
collection. It occupies the South Hall of the Congres- 
sional Library. 

Before this purchase, the largest and most complete col- 
lection of books relating to America was tucked away on 
the shelves of the British Museum. Among the treasures 
of the Force Library is a perfect copy of Eliot's Indian 
Bible, the last copy of which sold brought $1,000 ; forty- 
one different works of Cotton and Increase Mather, printed 
at Boston and Cambridge, from 1671 to 1735 ; complete 
files of the leading journals of Massachusetts, New York, 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other States, from 1735 to 
1800, with 245 bound volumes of American newspapers 
printed prior to 1800 ; and these make but a small pro- 
portion of its priceless historical wealth. 

February 18, 1816, a bill was introduced in the Senate 
to establish a Law Library at the Seat of Government, for 
the use of the Supreme Court of the United States. It 
passed that body, but never went into effect, from the non- 
action of the House of Representatives on the bill. July 
14, 1832, [Andrew Jackson, President,] a bill was ap- 



THE SEKVICE OF A LIFE-TIME. 141 

proved, entitled, "An Act to increase and improve the 
Law Department of the Library of Congress," which, in 
its four sections, contained the following provisions : 

" For the present year a sum not exceeding five thousand 
dollars, and a farther annual sura of one thousand dollars for 
the period of five years, to be expended in the purchase of law 
books." 

The number of law books owned by the Library at 
that time was 2,011 ; 639 of these belonged to the Jeffer- 
son collection. From this beginning, within forty years 
has grown the finest law library in the world. It con- 
tains every volume of English, Irish and Scotch reports, 
besides the American ; an immense collection of case law, 
a complete collection of the Statutes of all civilized coun- 
tries since 1649, filling one hundred quarto volumes. It 
includes the first edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, 
an original edition of the report of the trial of Cagliostro, 
Rohan and La Motte, for the theft of Marie Antoinette's 
diamond necklace — that luckless bauble which fanned to 
such fury the fatal flames of the Revolution. When An- 
drew Jackson became President, in 1829, he appointed 
John S. Meehan, a printer of Washington, the first editor 
and publisher of the Columbia Star and United States 
Telegraph, Librarian of Congress. He continued in that 
office till the accession of Mr. Lincoln — a period of thirty- 
two years. His son, Mr. C. H. W. Meehan, relinquished 
his boy pageship under his father, in 1832, to be transfer- 
red to the new Law Library. The lapse of forty years 
finds this gentleman still the special custodian of the Law 
Library. In 1835 he was entrusted with the choice of 
all books purchased for the Library, which trust he con- 



142 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

tinues to hold. He adds another to the many faithful 
and learned lives whose entire span is measured by de- 
voted service to the State, nnder the shadow of the Capi- 
tol. In December, 1860, the Law Library was removed 
into the basement room of the Capitol, just vacated by 
the Supreme Court. This room is unique and beautiful. 
Its vestibule is supported by pillars in clusters of stalks of 
maize, with capitals of bursting ears of corn, the design 
•i of Mr. Latrobe.' . The chamber itself is of semi-circular 
form seventy-five feet in length. The arches of the ceil- 
ing rest upon immense Doric columns. The spandrels of 
the arches are filled in with solid masonry — -blocks of 
sandstone, strong enough to support the whole Capitol. 
Their tragic strength springs from the fact that the arch 
above fell once, burying and killing beneath it its de- 
signer, Mr. Lenthal. The plan of his arch in proportion 
to its height was pronounced unsafe by all who examined 
the drawing, except himself. To prove his own faith 
in his theory he tore away the scaffolding before the 
ceiling was dry. It fell, and he was taken out hours 
after, dead and mangled, from its fallen ruins. It will 
never fall again. The tremendous masonry which now 
supports a very light burden makes it impossible. The 
Doric columns diverge from the centre to the circum- 
ference like the radii of a circle. From this centre 
diverge the alcoves lined with books in the regulation 
binding, likened by Dickens to " underdone pie-crust." 
On the western wall near the ceiling is a group in plas- 
ter, representing Justice holding the scales, and Fame 
crowned with the rising sun, pointing to the Constitution 
of the United States, the work of Franzoni, the sculptor of 
the History-winged clock, in the old Hall of Representa- 



A KOOM WHICH HAS MEMORIES. 143 

tives. In this room, Daniel "Webster made his great 
speech in the Dartmouth College case, and Horace Bin- 
ney his argument in the case of the Girard Will. The 
Librarian's semi-circular mahogany desk, with its faded 
green brocade draperies, once stood in the old Senate 
Chamber and re-echoed to the gavel of every Vice Presi- 
dent who reigned in the Senate from 1825 to 18G0. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE HEAVEN OF LEGAL AMBITION— THE SUPREME 
COURT ROOM. 

Memories of Clay, Webster and Calhoun — Legal Giants of the Past — 
Stately Serenity of the Modern Court — "Wise Judgment and Wine- 
Dinners " — The Supreme Court in Session — Soporific Influences — A 
Glimpse of the Veritable "Bench"— The Ladies' Gallery— The Chief 
Justices of the Past — Taney Left Out in the Cold — His Apotheosis — 
Chief Justice Chase — Black Robed Dignitaries — An Undignified Pro- 
cession — The "Crier" in Court — Antique Proclamation — The Consul- 
tation Room — Every Man in his Proper Place — Gowns of Office — Rem- 
iniscence of Judge McClean — "Uncle Henry and his Charge" — Fifty 
Years in Office. 

ONE of the few rooms in the Capitol wherein har- 
mony and beauty meet and mingle, is the Old Sen- 
ate Chamber, now the Supreme Court Room of the Uni- 
ted States. 

Here Clay, and Webster, and Calhoun, — those giants of 
the past, whom octogenarians still deplore with all their 
remembered and forgotten peers, — once held high con- 
clave. Defiance and defeat, battle and triumph, argu- 
ment and oratory, wisdom and folly once held here their 
court. It is now the chamber of peace. Tangled ques- 
tions concerning life, liberty and the pursuit of personal 
happiness are still argued within these walls, but never 
in tones which would drown the sound of a dropping 
pin. Every thought is weighed, every word measured 
that is uttered here. The judges who sit in silence to 



SUPREME COURT ROOM. 145 

listen and decide, have outlived the tumult of youth and 
the summer of manhood's fiercer battles. They have 
earned fruition ; they have won their gowns — which, while 
life lasts, can never be worn by others. Theirs is the 
mellow afternoon of wise judgment and wine-dinners. 

In the Court room itself we seem to have reached 
an atmosphere where it is always afternoon. The door 
swings to and fro noiselessly, at the pull of the usher's 
string. The spectators move over a velvet carpet, which 
sends back no echo, to their velvet cushioned seats 
ranged against the outer-walls. A single lawyer argu- 
ing some constitutional question, drones on within the 
railed inclosure of the Court ; or a single judge in meas- 
ured tones mumbles over the pages of his learned decis- 
ion in some case long drawn out. Unless you are deeply 
interested in it you will not stay long. The atmosphere 
is too soporific, you soon weary of absolute silence and 
decorum, and depart. The chamber itself is semi-circu- 
lar, with snow white walls and windows crimson-cur- 
tained. It has a domed ceiling studded with stuccoed 
mouldings and sky-lights. The technical " bench" is a 
row of leather backed arm-chairs ranged in a row on a 
low dais. Over the central chair of the Chief Justice a 
gilt eagle looks down from a golden rod. Over this eagle, 
and parallel with the bench below, runs a shallow gallery, 
from which many fine ladies of successive administra- 
tions have looked down on the gods below. At inter- 
vals around the white walls are set brackets on which 
are perched the first four Chief Justices — John Jay, 
John Rutledge, Oliver Ellsworth and John Marshall. 
There have been but six Chief Justices of the Supreme 
Court since its beginning. Chief Justice Taney's bust 

10 



146 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

for years was left out in the cold on a pedestal within 
a recess of one of the windows of the Senate wing. It 
was voted in the Senate that it should there wait a cer- 
tain number of expiatory years until in the fulness of 
time it should be sufficiently absolved to enter the his- 
toric heaven of its brethren. 

One more is yet to be added — the grand head and 
face of Chief Justice Chase. The May flowers have 
scarcely faded since he held high court here alone. As 
ever his was the place of honor. A crown of white rose- 
buds shed incense upon his head — placed there by the 
beautiful daughter who crowned him in death, as in life, 
the first of men. Crosses, anchors and columns of stain- 
less blossoms were heaped high above his head. Here 
in the silence of death, for one day and night, the great 
Chief Justice held Supreme Court alone. 

During the session of the Supreme Court, the hour of 
meeting is 11 A. M. Precisely at that hour a procession 
of black-robed dignitaries, kicking up their long gowns 
very high with their heavy boots, may be seen wending 
their way from the robing-room to the Supreme Court 
room. They are preceded by the Marshal, who, entering 
by a side-door, leads directly to the Judges' stand, and, 
pausing before the desk, exclaims : 

" The Honorable the Chief Justice and Associate Jus- 
tices of the Supreme Court of the United States." 

With these words' all present rise, and stand to receive 
the Justices filing in. Each Justice passes to his chair. 
The Judges bow to the lawyers ; the lawyers bow to the 
Judges ; then all sit down. The Crier then opens the 
Court with these words : 

" O, yea ! O, yea ! O, yea ! All persons having business 



STRANGE OLD FORMS. 147 

with the honorable the Supreme Court of the United States are 
admonished to draw near and give their attendance, as the Court 
is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable 
Court." 

At the close of this antique little speech, the Chief Jus- 
tice motions to the lawyer whose case is to be argued, 
and that gentleman rises, advances to the front, and 
begins his argument. 

The chairs of the Judges are all placed in the order of 
their date of appointment. On either side of the Chief 
Justice sit the senior Judges, while the last appointed sit 
at the farther ends of each row. In the robing-room, 
their robes, arid coats and hats, hang in the same order. 
In the consultation-room, where the Judges meet on 
Saturday to consult together over important cases pre- 
sented, their chairs around the table are arranged in the 
same order, the Chief Justice presiding at the head. Both 
the robing; and consultation-rooms command beautiful 
views from their windows of the city, the Potomac, and 
the hills of Virginia. In the former, the Judges exchange 
their civic dress for the high robes of office. These are 
made of black silk or satin, and are almost identical with 
the silk robe of anEpiscopal clergyman. The gown 
worn by Judge McClean still hangs upon its hook as when /^ c , 
he hung it there for the last time — years and years ago. 
The consultation-room is across the hall from the Law 
Library, whose books are in constant demand by the 
lawyers and Judges of the Supreme Court. This room is in 
charge of " Uncle Henry," a colored man, who has held 
this office for fifty years, and, at the age of eighty, still 
fulfils his duties with all the alacrity and twice the devo- 
tion of a much younger man. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE "MECCA OF THE AMERICAN." 

The Caaba of Liberty — The Centre of a Nation's Hopes — Stirring Reminis- 
cences of the Capitol — History Written in Stone — Patriotic Expression 
of Charles Sumner — Ruskin's Views of Ornament — Building " for all 
Time " — " This our Fathers Did for Us " — The Parthenon and the Capitol 
Compared — The Interest of Humanity — A Secret Charm for a Thought- 
ful Mind — An Idea of Equality — The Destiny of the Stars and Stripes — 
A Mother's Ambition — Recollections of the War — The Dying Soldier — 
" The Republic -will not Perish." 

THE Capitol of his country should be the Mecca of 
the American. It is his Capitol, and his country's, 
through such extreme cost, that he should make pilgrim- 
ages hither to behold with his own eyes the Caaba of 
Liberty. This august building should gather and con- 
centrate within its walls the holy love of country. 

In our vast land the passion of nationality has become 
too much diffused. It has been broken into the narrower 
love bestowed upon a single State. It has been bruised 
by faction. It has been broken by anarchy. But within 
the walls of the Capitol, every State in the Union holds 
its memories, and garners its hopes. Every hall and 
corridor, every arch and alcove, every painting and 
marble is eloquent with the history of its past, and the 
prophecy of its future. The torch of revolution flamed 
in sight, yet never reached this beloved Capitol. Its 
unscathed walls are the trophies of victorious war; its 



BUILDING FOR POSTERITY. 149 

dome is the crown of triumphant freemen; its unfilled 
niches and perpetually growing splendor foretell the 
grandeur of its final consummation. Remembering 
this, with what serious thought and care should this 
great national work progress: 

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
And groined the aisles of ancient Home, 
"Wrought with a sad sincerity." 

Let no poor artist, no insincere spirit, assume to decor- 
ate a building in whose walls and ornaments a great na- 
tion will embody and perpetuate its most precious his- 
tory. The brain that designs, the hand that executes 
for the Capitol, works not for to-day, but for all time. 
It was with a profound consciousness, not only of what 
this building is, but of all that it must yet be to the 
American people, that Charles Sumner, that profound 
lover of beauty, said, with so much feeling: "Surely this 
edifice, so beautiful and interesting, should not be opened 
to the rude experiment of untried talent. It ought 
not to receive, in the way of ornamentation, anything 
which is not a work of art." In every future work added 
to the Capitol, let the significant words of Ruskin, the 
great art critic, be remembered : 

" There should not be a single ornament put upon a great 
civic building, without an intellectual intention. Every human 
action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its 
regard to things to come. There is no action nor art whose 
majesty we may not measure by this test. Therefore, when we 
build a public building, let us think that we build it for ever. 
Let us remember that a time is to come when men will say : 
' See, this our fathers did for us.' " 



150 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

Phidias created the Parthenon. Beneath his eyes it 
slowly blossomed, the consummated flower of Hellenic art. 
It has never been granted to another one man to create a 
perfect building which should be at once the marvel and 
the model of all time. Many architects have wrought upon 
the American Capitol, and there are discrepancies in its 
proportions wherein we trace the conflict of their opposing 
idiosyncrasies. We see places where their contending 
tastes met and did not mingle, where the harmony and 
sublimity which each sought was lost. We see frescoed 
fancies and gilded traceries which tell no story ; we see 
paintings which mean nothing but glare. But a human 
interest attaches itself to every form of noble building. 
Its very defects the more endear it to us, for, above all 
else, these are human. We love our Capitol, not that it 
is perfect, but because, being faulty, it still is great, and 
worthy of our reverence. Its wondrous possibilities, its 
inadequate fulfilment, its very incompleteness, but make 
it nearer kin to ourselves. Like the friend tantalizingly 
and delightfully faulty, its many shaded humanity is full 
of varied charm. It has all the secret ways of a profound 
nature. We fancy that we know it altogether, that we 
could never be lost in its labyrinths ; yet we are con- 
stantly finding passages that we dreamed not of, and con- 
fronting shut and silent doors which we may not enter. 
But the deeper we penetrate into its recesses, the more 
positively we are pervaded by its nobleness, and the more 
conscious we become of its magnitude and its magnifi- 
cence. 

No matter how we condemn certain proportions of the 
Capitol, it grows upon the soul and imagination more 
and more, as does every great object in art or nature. 



NOW AXD THEN". 151 

Beside, the Capitol is vastly more than an object of mere 
personal attachment to be measured by a narrow indi- 
vidual standard. To every American citizen it is the 
majestic symbol of the majesty of his land. You may be 
lowly and poor. You may not own the cottage which 
shelters you, nor the scanty acres which you till. Your 
power may not cross your own door-step ; yet these his- 
toric statues and paintings, these marble corridors, these 
soaring walls, this mighty dome, are yours. The highest 
man in the nation owns nothing here which does not be- 
long equally to you. The Goddess of Liberty, gazing 
down from her shield, bestows no right upon the lofty 
which she does not extend equally to the lowliest of her 
sons. 

The temple of Pallas Athena, the stones of Venice, the 
mighty mementos of a mightier Mexico do not tell to any 
human gazer one-half so grand a story as the Capitol of 
America will yet proclaim to the pilgrim of later ages. 
In far-off time I see it stand forth the conqueror of the 
forgetfulness and the indifference of men. A solemn 
teacher, with stern, watchful, yet silent sympathy, it will 
impart to a proud people the profound lesson of their 
past. A loving mother, it will hold before her living 
children the sacred faces of her dead for the emulation, 
the reverence, the love, of all who came after. In its 
halls will stand the sculptured forms of famed men, and 
of women great in goodness, great in devotion, great in 
true motherhood. Through sight and sympathy, through 
the inspiration of grand example, the living woman as she 
lays her moulding hand upon the budding heart and ten- 
der brain of the boy-man, will rise to the true dignity of 
the wife and mother of the Republic. 



152 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

With psychical sight we see what the Capitol will one 
day be, to later generations ; by our own heart-throbs, 
we know what it is to ourselves. Strength and depth 
are in its foundations, power and sublimity in its dome, 
and these are ours. Its mighty masses of gleaming mar- 
ble, all veined with azure ; its Corinthian capitals, flower- 
ing at the top like a palm in nature ; its tutelary statue of 
freedom, are joys to our eyes forever. Serene Mother 
of our liberties, she watches always and never wearies. 
When the whole land lay in shadow, when the blood of 
her sons ran in rivers, when her heart was pierced nigh 
unto death, in moveless calm she held her steadfast 
shield ; and gazing into her eyes, through the dimness 
of tears, we read the promise of peace. No matter where 
darkness fell, she bore the sunlight upon her crest. The 
dying statesman asked to be lifted up that his eyes might 
behold her last. The soldier, who gave his all, to perish 
in her name, watched for the sight of her from afar, and 
beheld her first with the shout of joy. When the slow 
river bore him back wounded from battle, he strained his 
eyes to catch a glimpse of Freedom on the dome, and 
looking up, was content to know that he was dying for 
her sake. 

Factions will fight and fall. Political parties will strug- 
gle and destroy each other. The passions of men are 
but the waves which beat and break on her feet. Above, 
beyond them all Freedom lives for evermore. Because 
she lives, Truth and Justice must survive, and the Repub- 
lic will not perish. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
THE CAPITOL— MORNING SIGHTS AND SCENES. 

The Capitol in Spring — A Magic Change — " More Beautiful than Ancient 
Rome" — Arrival of Visitors — A New Race — "Billing and Cooing" — 
Lovers at the Capitol — A Dream of Perpetual Spring — Spending the 
Honeymoon in Washington — Charmingly "Vernal " People — New Edi- 
tion of David Copperfield and Dora — " Very Young " — Divided Affec- 
tions: the New Bride — Jonathan and Jane — Memories of a Wedding 
Dress — An Interview With a Bride — " Two Happy Idiots" — A Walk in 
the City — Utilitarian Projects — President Grant — The Foreign Ambas- 
sadors — "Beau" Hickman — An Erratic Genius — Walt Whitman, the 
Poet — A " Loafer " of Renown — Poets at Home — Piatt — Burroughs — 
Harriet Prescott Spofford — Sumner and Chase — Foreign Attaches " on 
the Flirt " — Tiresome Men — Lafayette Square in the Morning — How to 
Love a Tree — " He Never Saw Washington." 

E rarely have spring in this latitude. Full pano- 
plied, summer springs from under the mail of 
long lingering winter. We had a fine yesterday. From 
my window this morning lo ! the miracle ! my dear long- 
timed friend, the maple across the street, amazes me once 
more, though I declared to it last year I never would be 
amazed again. It beckons me, its myriad little wands all 
aquiver with the tenderest green, and says: " There now, 
you can't help it! Again I pan a beauty and a wonder!" 
No long waiting and watching for slow budding blos- 
soms here. Some night when we are all asleep there 
is a silent burst of bloom ; and we wake to find the trees 
that we left here, when we shut our blinds on them the 



154 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

night before, all tremulous with new life, and the whole 
city set in glowing emerald. 

I invite you to the western front of the Capitol, to 
stand with me in the balcony of the Congressional Li- 
brary, to survey the city lying at our feet within the 
amphitheatre of hills soaring beyond, the river running 
its shining thread between. I am quite ready to be- 
lieve what Charles Sumner said when pleading against 
the mooted depot site on its Central Avenue, that this 
city is more beautiful than ancient Rome. In itself it 
is absolutely beautiful, and that is enough ; and it grows 
more and more so as the sea of greenery, which now 
waves and tosses about its housetops, rises each year 
higher and higher. The Capitol in early spring and sum- 
mer is in no wise the Capitol of the winter. Every door 
swings wide ; from the doors in the under-ground corri- 
dors to the wondrous doors, designed in Rome and cast in 
Munich, which open into the rotunda. What long, cool, 
green vistas run out from every angle. You stand be- 
neath the dome ; but your eyes find rest in the far shadow 
of the Virginia hills. 

And so many people seem to have come under the 
great dome to rest. You wonder where they could all 
have appeared from. They are not at all the people who 
crowd and hurry through the corridors in winter — the 
claimants, the lobbyists, the pleasure-seekers from great 
cities who come to spend the " season" in Washington. 
Nearly all are people from the country, the greater pro- 
portion brides and grooms, to whom the only " season" 
on earth is spring — the marriage season. Pretty pairs ! 
They seem to be gazing out upon life through its portal 
with the same mingling of delight and wonder with which 



SPENDING THE HONEYMOON. 155 

they gaze through the great doors of the Capitol upon 
the unknown world beyond. Early summer always brings 
a great influx of bridal pairs to Washington. Whence 
they all come no mortal can tell ; but they do come, and 
can never be mistaken. Their clothes are as new as the 
spring's, and they look charmingly vernal. The groom 
often seems half to deprecate your sudden glance, as if, 
like David Copperfield, he was afraid you thought him 
" very young." And yet he invites you to glance again, 
by his conscious air of proud possession, which says : " Be- 
hold ! I may be young — very. But I have gotten me a 
wife; she is the loveliest creature upon earth." The 
affections of the lovely creature seem to be divided be- 
tween her new lord and her new clothes. She loves him, 
she is proud of him ; but this new suit, who but she can 
tell its cost. What longing, what privation, what patient 
toil has gone into its mouse or fawn-like folds ; for this 
little bride, who regretfully drags her demi-train through 
the dust of the rotunda in summer, is seldom a rich man's 
daughter. You see them everywhere repeated, these two 
neophytes — in the hotel-parlor, in the street-cars, in the 
Congressional galleries. 

W hen Jonathan read to Jane, in distant Mudville, the 
record of Congressional proceedings in Washington, in the 
Weekly Tribune, both imagined themselves deeply inter- 
ested in the affairs of their country; but here, on the spot, 
how small seem Tariff, Amnesty, Civil Rights, and Ku- 
Klux bills beside the ridiculous bliss of these two egotists. 
They do not even pretend to listen. But they have some 
photograph cards, and seek out their prototypes below. 
On the whole, Jane is disappointed. She was not pre- 
pared for so many bald heads, or for so much of bad man- 



156 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

ners. After all, not one of these men, in her mind, can 
compare with the small law-giver, the newly-found Ly- 
curgus by her side. Before she became calm enough to 
reach this judicial decision, she visited the ladies' dressing- 
room and shook out her damaged plumes. 

"Is Washington always so dusty ? " she asked, with a 
sigh, looking down on her pretty mouse-colored dress, 
with its piping decidedly grimed. 

"Nearly always," I answered. 

" Then how can people live here ? " she exclaimed. 

When she goes home, she will tell that the dome of 
the Capitol is very high ; that Conkling looks thus, and 
Sumner so. But what she will tell oftenest and longest — 
perhaps to her children's children — will be that it was in 
Washington she ruined her w 7 edding dress. 

"I was married yesterday, and see how I look! " said 
Jane, ruefully. 

"You look very pretty," I said. "It will all shake off!" 
Wherewith Jane proceeded to shake, to wash her face, 
and brush her curls over her lingers. I helped her re- 
drape her lace shawl, and was repaid a moment later by 
her graceful pose in the front seat of the Senate Gallery, 
her hand in Jonathan's. It was refreshing, in the face of 
such a conglomeration of doubtful wisdom, to see two 
happy idiots, if they did not know it. The city is full of 
Janes and Jonathans. 

The Capitol grounds are lovely as the gardens of the 
blessed, these hours. 

The armies of violets which swarmed its green slopes a 
month ago are gone, and the dandelions have gone up 
higher, and are now sailing all around us through the 
deep, still air. There is a ripple in the grass that invites 



WIRE-PULLING. 157 

the early mower. The fountains toss their spray into the 
very hearts of the old trees that bend above them, and on 
the easy seats beneath their shadow, sit black and white, 
old and young, taking rest. 

These grounds, perfect in themselves, utter but one re- 
proach to the men legislating within yonder walls, and 
that, because they are not larger and meet in proportion 
to the august Capitol which they encircle. We pass 
through them out into Pennsylvania avenue — this great 
and yet to be fulfilled expectation. Broadway cannot 
compare with it in magnificent proportions. It is as wide 
as two Broadways, and at this hour of the afternoon its 
turn-outs are metropolitan. Nevertheless, judged by its 
trees and houses, it has a rural, second-rate look. Though 
here and there a lonesome building shoots up above its 
fellows, its average shops are shabby and small, and do 
not compare favorably with those of Third avenue in 
New York. The idealistic Statesmen of Washington and 
Jefferson's time modelled it to repeat the Unter der Lin- 
dens of Berlin. As a result, the ample rows of Lombardy 
poplars are defunct, and the Gradgrind politicians of to- 
day have voted to dump down a railroad " depot " in its 
very centre, because Mr. Thomas Scott wants it, and be- 
cause they have free railroad-passes, and a few other little 
perquisites in their pockets. This, of course, is very 
shocking to say ; but then it is much more shocking to 
be true. Excepting Mr. Sumner, Mr. Morrill, Mr. Thur- 
man and a few others, who really care for the future of 
Washington and who love this Capital, the remainder 
would, for a sufficient price, sell out the entire city, Capi- 
tol and all, to monopolies and corporations. But this 
broad thoroughfare, stretching straight for a mile be- 



158 TEN YEARS' IN WASHINGTON. 

tween Treasury and Capitol, with its double drive, smooth 
as a floor, its borders of bloom, its gay promenades and 
flashing turn-outs has a certain splendor of its own, of 
which no monopoly can wholly rob it. 

Here is the Grant carriage, with its plain brown linings, 
and in it Mrs. Grant and her father. A light buggy flies 
past, drawn by superb horses, driven by a single occupant. 
He is the President — small, slight, erect, smoking a cigar. 
The courtly equipages of the Peruvian, Argentine, 
Turkish and English Ministers, with liveried outriders 
and beautiful women occupants, with the no less elegant 
establishments of American Senators, Members and citi- 
zens, swell the gay cavalcade on this truly splendid 
Corso. 

Standing on the curb-stone, gazing on it with an ex- 
pression which would have made Dickens wild till he 
had reproduced it, stands Beau Hickman, long a character 
of Washington. He is an old man, long and lean, with a 
face corrugated like a wizened apple and a complexion 
like parchment or an Egyptian mummy. His aspect is a 
strange compound of gentility and meanness. His stove- 
pipe hat, which evidently has survived many a batter- 
ing, is carefully brushed ; his standing collar is very stiff 
and very high. His vest is greyish white, his coat is dingy 
and shiny. His faded pantaloons have been darned, and 
need darning again. His toes are peering through his 
shoes, and they are down at the heels; yet he carries a 
foppish cane and wears his hat in a rakish manner. Beau 
Hickman was born a Virginia gentleman, insomuch as 
he still manages to live without labor, it being the pride 
of his heart that he never did anything useful in his life. 
He ekes out a wretched existence by filching small sums 



WELL-KNOWN" FACES. 159 

from friends and strangers for telling stories and relating 
experiences, for which he invariably demands a drink or a 
supper. One of the most miserable objects I ever beheld 
is Bean Hickman hungry, hobbling through the Senate 
restaurant, gazing at one table and then at another, at 
the comfortable people sitting by them, filling their 
stomachs, not one alas ! asking him to partake. 

Here with a sweep and swing, with head thrown back, 
and arms at rest, comes a man as supremely indifferent 
to all this show as the other is abjectly enthralled by it. 
This man, slowly swinging down the Avenue, is a " cos- 
mos" in himself. Locks profuse and white, eyes big and 
blue, cheeks ruddy, throat bare, wide collar turned back, 
slouched felt hat punched in, a perfect lion apparently 
in muscle and vitality — this is Walt Whitman. Every 
sunshiny day he " loafs " and invites his soul on the 
Avenue, and there are other poets who do likewise. 
Here sometimes may be seen John James Piatt, now Li- 
brarian of the House of Representatives, with his blonde 
hair and brown-eyed wife, who is quite as much a poet as 

c 

he is ; and John Burrough^the Thoreau of the Treasury 
Department, gentle as one of his own birds; and William 
O'Connor whose poetical fires burn undimmed within the 
same dim old walls • and, clad in mourning, Harriet Pres- 
cott Spofford, sweet poet and sweeter woman. Here of 
old were seen the gigantic forms of Charles Sumner and 
of Chief Justice Chase. When the Supreme Court is in 
session, at a certain hour, a company of immense gentle- 
men doff their long black silk gowns, and slowly and 
ponderously wend their way along the Avenue, in mild, 
dignified pursuit of exercise and dinner. Here, before 
the sun grows too hot, may be seen the moustached, ges- 



160 TE2* TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

ticulatingj voluble young attaches of the foreign embas- 
sies with the pretty girls of the West End, who they like 
to flirt with but rarely marry — which is fortunate for the 
girls. 

I cannot divorce myself long enough from this divine 
day to write about, men. There is not a man on the face 
of the earth that would not be tiresome if one had to think 
of him, to the exclusion of this weather. To think that 
there are any to be written about when I want to sit in the 
sun and do nothing, stirs up a perfect rumpus between 
desire and duty. I am not so fond of my duty that I 
always spell it with a big " D," or in every emergency put 
it foremost. I would like to put it out of sight some 
times. Wouldn't you ? But then I cannot. " It's too 
many for me," as poor Tulliver said of his enemy. It 
won't go out of sight, much less stay there. Something 
clever might have come to me about tedious men if I had 
not reached Lafayette Square this morning. There is that 
in this new bloom so tender, so unsullied, which makes 
politicians seem paltry, and all their outcry a mockery and 
an impertinence. To be sure, these green arcades in their 
outer bound touch another world. Beyond, and above 
them, floats the flag on the Arlington House. Below, the 
windows of Charles Sumner's home hint of art and beauty 
within. The abodes of famous men and of beautiful 
women encircle all the square. On one side the white 
cornices of the Executive Mansion peer above the trees. 

Almost within call are men and women whose names 
suggest histories and prophecies, all the tangled phe- 
nomena of individual life. Yet how easy to forget them 
all on these seats, which Gen. Babcock has made so rest- 
ful — thank him. The long summer wave in the May 



THE SOUL OF A TREE. 161 

grass ; the low, swaying boughs, with their deep, mys- 
terious murmur, that seems instinct with human plead- 
ing ; the tender plaint of infant leaves ; the music of birds ; 
the depth of sky ; the balm, the bloom, the virginity, the 
peace, the consciousness of life, new yet illimitable, are 
all here, just as perfectly as they are yonder in God's 
solitude, untouched of man. If you need help to love a 
tree read the diary of Maurice de Guerin. No one else, 
not even Thoreau, (whose nature lacked in depth and 
breadth of tenderness perhaps in the deepest spiritual in- 
sight,) ever came so near or drew forth with such deep 
feeling the very soul of inanimate Nature. He felt the 
soul of the tree, heard it in the moaning of its voice as it 
stood with its roots bound in the earth and its arms out- 
stretched with a never-ceasing sigh towards infinity. But 
why do I speak of him ? He lived and died and never 
saw Washington. 



11 



CHAPTER XVIH. 
FAIR WASHINGTON— A RAMBLE IN EARLY SPRING. 

Washington Weather — Sky Scenery — Professor Tyndall Expresses an Opin- 
ion — A Picture of Beauty — "A City of Enchantment" — "My Own 
Washington " — Prejudiced Views — Birds of Rock Creek — The Parson- 
age — A Scene of Tranquil Beauty — A Washington May — Charms of the 
Season — Mowers at Work — The Public Parks — Frolics of the Little 
Ones — Strawberry Festivals — " Flower Gathering." 

THE climate of Washington has a villainous reputa- 
tion, and at certain times and seasons it deserves it. 
Yet it tantalizes us with days which prelude Paradise. 
Under their azure arch, through their beguiling air, with 
reluctant steps we enter winter — the oozy, clammy, 
coughing winter, which waits us just the other side of 
the gate of January. But they linger long — the pre- 
luding days. They seem reluctant to }deld us to our im- 
pending foes — society and wet weather. 

These are the days of days, swathed in masses of lights 
and color unfathomable. It is one of the wonders of 
Washington too rarely noted — its sky-scenery. So few 
people take the trouble to look at the sky save to see if "it 
looks like rain." All that New York can afford to give to 
tired mortals is a scanty slice of light through which to 
let a glimpse of glory down upon its palaces and cata- 
combs of humanity. But across these banding hills, this 
broad amphitheatre of space, mass and sweep on, in the 



A SCENE OF TRANQUIL BEAUTY. 163 

empyrean, wave on wave of polarized light, with a deli- 
cacy of tint, a dejoth of hue, an immensity of volume, 
which no words can portray. This vast sea of color (in 
its deeps of orange, purple and gold, which now trans- 
figure the twilight sky, till the Virginia hills look like 
open gates to the city of gold) Professor Tyndall, in one 
of his lectures on light, in this city, said that he had never 
seen approached on the other side of the Atlantic, save 
by the intense refractions of light on the Alpine glaciers. 

In the autumnal days, and in the advancing spring, 
through the blue spaces steals a tremulous, ever hover- 
ing purple, like opaline doves' necks' lustre, penetrating 
all the atmosphere like the purple haze above the hills 
of Rome, till the yellow walls of Arlington House, and 
the snowy masses of the Capitol seem actually to shim- 
mer through waves of amethystine mist. Under such a 
light, some morning, spring suddenly spreads forth its 
whole panoply, with a vividness of green, a prodigality 
of foliage never seen in a more northern latitude. One 
wide wilderness of unbroken bloom sends up its fra- 
grance through waves of purple yellow and azure light, 
and then, till the day when, without warning, summer 
suddenly transmutes all into molten brass, Washington 
in light and color, in bloom and fragrance, is a city of/ 
enchantment. 

Thus I have a "Washington of my own, dear friends. I 
never find it till some March day, when in walking down 
the Capitol grounds I discover that the shining runlets 
on either side of the Avenue have broken loose and are 
racing free through their sluices of stone, and that all 
the crocuses in the broad beds under the trees are push- 
ing their little yellow r noses out of the ground. To be 



164 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

sure, they almost always draw them back again to get 
them out of the snow which falls after ; nevertheless on 
that day I find my Washington. Then it is, that just as 
the grey lenten veil has covered and extinguished the 
gay season of the " German," we come unaware upon 
another Washington, which I vainly essay to portray for 
you. My season is not fashionable. No portrayer of 
costumes is "liberally paid" by "the most enterprising 
of publishers " to describe the transcendent suit which 
decks this season of mine. My Washington has no 
chronicler. The scribes are all so busy abusing the Capi- 
tol, depicting its follies and its crimes, that, though they 
have eyes, they see not, and ears, they hear not, the sights 
and sounds of this other Washington — fair Washington, 
outlying, above and beyond all. 

If I could only paint for you the fathomless purples in 
which the hills enfold themselves, the wide glimmering 
rosy spaces, reaching on and on ; or tell you of the nations 
of birds in the Rock Creek woods, which have made there 
a supreme haunt for naturalists ; of its nations of flowers, 
which beckon and nod from the Rock Creek and Piney 
Branch roads; the anemones, the arbutus, the honey- 
suckle, the laurel, the violets, the innocents, covering 
wide acres with color and perfume ; of the shy Rock Creek 
parsonage, built of brick brought from England more 
than a century ago, above whose trees the Capitol gleams, 
yet within whose porch you seem shut in peace away from 
this loud world, with the bees droning in the still warm air, 
and humming-birds drinking from the lilac cups ; with the 
gentle Christian hearts which abide beneath its roof and 
minister beneath the shadow of its venerable church; 
if I could paint all these as they are, you would care for 



FLOWER GATHERING. 165 

my Washington, but as I cannot, I fear that you never 
will. 

A Washington May is the June of the north, with a 
pomp of color, an exuberance of foliage, an allurement of 
atmosphere which a northern June has not. 

It is May now. All the ugly outlines and shabby old 
houses are softened and covered with beneficent foliage. 
Already the mowers are at work in the Capitol grounds 
and in the little public parks, and the sweetness of the 
slain grass pervades the atmosphere. The children are 
everywhere pretty things. Washington is full of them, 
tumbling amid the flowers and in the dirt. It is May, yet 
June, impatient, has reached across her sister, dropping 
her roses everywhere. Washington is one vast garden of 
roses. It is the hour of strawberry festivals and of 

FLOWER GATHERING. 

Miles away from the dusty town, 

Out in the beautiful June-time weather, 
The wind of the south is rippling down, 

And over the purple hills of heather. 

Dim, in the distance, the city walls • 

Rise, like the walls of a dreary prison ; 
On the healing sward where the sunshine falls, 

We stand 'mid the flowery folk arisen. 

"We watch their innocent eyelids ope, 

And below we hear the river flowing ; 
While wilting sweet on the upland slope 

Lies the grass of the early mowing. 

On through the bees and butterflies, 

The grass and the flowers, the hours are walking ; 

And we seem to catch their low replies 
To the flowing waters forever talking. 



166 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

We listen and question the fathomless space, 
In the deeps of its emerald silence lying, 

While we watch the leaves turning face to face, 

And their lovers — the winds — wooing and sighing. 

And still, like a dream, fades the dusty town, 
And dumb on our ear dies its distant murmur ; 

But the speech, in the stilly air steals down, 

And the fainting heart grows calmer and firmer. 

Hearts that ache with a wounding smart, 

Wander out from the heedless city ; 
The human yearning on Nature's heart 

Is a thing that God in his love must pity. 

Sorrow and sin are in the mart, 

And greed and gain killing tender feeling ; 

Here we draw close to the god Pan's heart, 
And feel on our hearts his touch of healing. 

Often we ask, is there room to grow 

'Neath the bands of the earth, so hard and binding ? 
The wisdom of life we are fain to know ; 

Does it ever pay for the pain of finding? 

So, far away from the dissonant town, 
Out in the marvellous June-time weather, 

We climb the hills to their blossoming crown, 
And rest and gather our flowers together. 

Lo ! we gather our flowers to-day, 

We are like thee, O restless river — 
We loiter for play on our endless way— 

While life, our life, rolls on forever. 




1 V. 



THE GREAT EAST ROOM. 




THE GREEN ROOM. 

INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE. -WASHINGTON. 



V: 



CHAPTER XIX. 
THE WHITE HOUSE, i. e. THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE. 

Haunted Houses — Shadows of the Past — Touching Memories — The Little 
Angels Born There — Building of the Presidential Mansion — A State of 
Perpetual Dampness — Dingy Aspect of a Monarch's Palace — Outside the 
White House — A Peep Inside the Mansion — The Emperor of Japan Su- 
persedes the Punch-Bowl — The Unfinished " Banqueting Hall " — Glories 
of a Levee — Magnificent Hospitalities — A Comfortable Dining-Room — 
Interesting Labors of Martha Patterson — A Lady of Taste — An Amer- 
ican " Baronial Hall" — The Furniture of Another Generation — A Valu- 
able Steward — A Professor of Gastronomy — Paying the Professor and 
Providing the Dinner — Feeding the Celebrities — Mrs. Lincoln's Unpopu- 
lar Innovations — Fifteen Hundred Dollars for a Dinner — How Prince Ar- 
thur, of England, was Entertained — Domestic Economy — "Not Enough 
Silver " — A Tasty Soup — The Recipe for an Aristocratic Stew — Having a 
"Nice Time" — Mrs. Franklin Pierce Horrified — "Going a Fishing on 
Sundays " — Hatred of Flummery — An Admirer of Pork and Beans and 
Slap-jacks — A Presidential Reception — Ready for the Festival — " Such a 
Bore ! " — Splendor, Weariness, and Indigestion — Paying the Penalty — 
In the Conservatory — Domestic Arrangements — The Library — Statue of 
Jefferson — Pleasant Views — Reminiscence of Abraham Lincoln. 

" All houses wherein men have lived and died 
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors 
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, 
"With feet that make no sound upon the floors." 

" There are more guests at table, than the hosts 
Invited ; the illuminated hall 
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts, 
As silent as the pictures on the wall." 

THESE lines were never truer of any human habita- 
tion than of the White House at Washington. 
The Nation's House ! The procession of families which 
the people have sent to inhabit it, in moving on to make 



168 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

place for others, have left memories behind which haunt 
these great rooms and fill staircase, alcove, and pictorial 
space with historic recollections. Here human life has 
been lived, enjoyed, suffered and resigned, just as it is 
lived every day in any house wherein human beings are 
born, wherein they live and die. Within its walls children 
have first opened their eyes upon this tantalizing life, and 
here children have died, leaving father and mother deso- 
late amid all the pomp of place and state. In this room 
the hero Taylor laid his earthly burdens and honors down ; 
here, by this eastern window, stood a girl-bride crowned 
with beautiful youth and marriage flowers. In this east 
room the supreme martyr of freedom, white, still and cold, 
received the nation who wept at his feet ; in this dim cham- 
ber a woman-saint read her Bible and communed with 
God, while pardon croakers crept into secret door-ways, 
and passion and treason ran riot in the great rooms which 
she entered. 

The first child born in the White House was the grand- 
son of Jefferson — James Madison Randolph ; and the last 
child who died here was " Willie " Lincoln. Here, also, 
President Harrison, President Taylor, and Mrs. Tyler 
passed through death unto life. 

The corner stone of the President's house was laid 
October 13, 1792. We have seen how anxious Jefferson 
was that it should be modelled after some famous modern 
palace of Europe. The one, at last selected, was the 
country house of the Duke of Leinster. It was designed 
by James Hoban, and open, though not ready for occu- 
pancy, in the summer of 1800. The house is built of 
porous Virginia freestone, which accounts for the fact 
of its perpetual dampness, and the more expensive fact 



THE PKESIDENt's HOUSE. 169 

that no amount of money and white-lead can make it a 
dry and desirable abode. And yet it is always pleasant 
and restful to the sight when the eyes fall upon its Ionic 
columns, peering pure and softened through the sea of 
greenery which sways and clips around it. One front 
alone of Buckingham Palace, cost more than the entire 
White House. Yet, to behold it, the palace is a black and 
ugly pile, and in simplicity and purity of outline bears 
no comparison with the Nation's White House. This is 
170 feet broad and 86 feet deep. Its north front has a 
lofty portico with four Ionic columns and a projecting 
screen of three columns. Between these columns pass the 
carriages which form a perpetual line moving on and 
round forever through the gay season. The house is 
three high stories, with the rusticated basement which 
reaches below the Ionic ordonnance. 

The portico opens upon a spacious hall forty by fifty 
feet. It is divided by a row of Ionic columns, through 
which we pass to the reception-room opposite. This is 
the Ked Room. Its light is dim and rosy. Its form is 
elliptical, and its bow window in the rear looks out on the 
park and away to the Potomac, as do the windows of all 
the corner parlors. In this room the President receives 
foreign ministers and the officers of the republic. The 
space over the marble mantel is entirely occupied with a life 
size painting of President Grant and his family. We pass 
through the Red Room into the Blue Room. All is cool 
azure here. The chairs, the sofas, the carpet, the paper 
on the wall, all are tinged with the celestial hue, flushed 
here and there with a tint of rose. In the Blue Room the 
President's wife holds her morning receptions. Here, with 
the daylight excluded, soft rays falling from the chandelier 



170 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

above, flowers in mounds and vases everywhere pouring out 
fragrance, surrounded by a group of ladies, chosen and in- 
vited to " assist," decked in jewels and costly raiment. 
One day of each week of the season, from three to five 
p. m., the President's wife receives her critic — the public. 

The Blue Room opens into the Green Room, the most 
cosy and home-like of all the public parlors. It is vividly 
emerald, softly malachite, all touched and gleaming with 
gold. A large mirror covers the space above the mantel. 
Beside vases in the centre of the marble mantel-piece 
stands an exquisite clock of ebony and malachite ; tall 
vases filled with fresh flowers rise from the carpet. On 
the centre table used to stand the immense punch-bowl, 
presented to the White House by the Emperor of Japan. 
It is now supplanted by a statue in bronze. The furni- 
ture is of rose-wood, cushioned with brocatelle of green 
and gold, while the same in heavy hangings are looped 
back from the lace curtains on the windows. 

From the Green Room we enter the famous East Room, 
extending the entire eastern side of the house. It is 
eighty-six feet long, forty feet wide, and twenty-eight feet 
high. Three immense chandeliers hang from the ceiling. 
It has already taken on the mellowness, not of age but of 
use, and in aspect bears no kin to the unfinished " Ban- 
queting Hall " in which Mrs. Adams dried the family linen, 
and Mrs. Monroe's little daughters played. Now, on a 
levee night, the East Room presents a sight never to be 
forgotten. The enormous chandeliers seem to pour the 
splendor of noon upon the glittering and moving host be- 
low. Satins, velvets, diamonds, plumes and laces rise and 
fall, and sway beside the gleaming gold lace of American 
officers, and the jewelled decorations of Foreign ministers. 



THE STATE DINING-ROOM. 171 

Eight mirrors repeat the glory of the sights. Eight Pres- 
idents, from their golden frames on the wall, seem to gaze 
out of the past upon the feverish splendor of a new gen- 
eration. The most exquisite carpet ever on the East 
Boom Avas a velvet one, chosen by Mrs. Lincoln. Its 
ground was of pale sea green, and in effect looked as if 
ocean, in gleaming and transparent waves, were tossing 
roses at your feet. 

Coming back to the Red Room, we pass into a narrow 
corridor, at the opposite end from which, on either side, 
open the family and state dining-room. The state din- 
ing-room is a staid and stately apartment, touched equally 
with new grace and old time grandeur. Martha Patter- 
son, the daughter of President Johnson, redeemed it from 
wreck, and instead of ruin, adorned it with the harmony 
of her own artistic nature. The neutral- tinted walls and 
carpet, the green satin damask hangings on the windows, 
and covering of the quaint furniture, are all her choice. An 
antique clock and grim candlesticks, from the Madison 
reign, stand stiffly on the marble mantels. With the ex- 
ception of a pair of modern sideboards, the furniture of 
this " baronial hall," solid and sombre, has descended from 
the eras of Washington and Jefferson. 

The state dining-room, and its state dinners, are con- 
trolled entirely by " Steward Melah, the silver- voiced Ital- 
ian," who was graduated from the Everett House, the 
Astor House, and the St. Charles, New Orleans, to the 
higher estate of superintending " goodies " for the palates 
of Diplomatists, Princes, and Members of Congress in the 
White House at Washington. The government pays 
Professor Melah for his services, but the President pays 
for the dinners, and he is expected to continue giving 



172 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

them till every foreign dignitary and home functionary, 
from the highest Diplomat to the most obscure Member 
of Congress, is invited. Mrs. Lincoln's presuming to 
abolish the time-honored but costly state-dinner of the 
White House, increased her personal unpopularity to an 
intense degree. 

The average state-dinner costs about seven hundred 
dollars, the special state dinner may cost fifteen hundred 
dollars. The one given to Prince Arthur, of England, 
cost that sum, without including the wines and other 
beverages. The dinner proper consisted of twenty-nine 
courses. The President puts a sum of money into the 
hands of the steward, and his expenditure is supposed to 
be in proportion to the official rank and grandeur of the 
invited guests. It is said that Professor Melah wrings 
his hands in distress when he is about to set the State 
table for a supreme occasion, and exclaims to the lady of 
the White House, who may be looking on : " Why Madam, 
there is not silver enough in the White House to set a 
respectable free-lunch table." 

At a state dinner the table is always profusely deco- 
rated with flowers, and the " first course " is invariably a 
soup of French vegetables, which Miss Grundy says has 
" never been equalled by any other soup, foreign or do- 
mestic." "It is said to be a little smoother than peacock's 
brains, but not quite so exquisitely flavored as a- dish of 
nightingales' tongues; and Professor Melah is the only 
man in the nation who holds in his hands the receipt for 
this aristocratic stew." No general conversation prevails 
at the state dinner. If the lady and gentleman elected to 
go in together happen to be agreeable to each other, they 
have a " nice time." If not, they have a stiff and tire- 



THE PRESIDENT AT HOME. 173 

some one. Exquisite finesse is needed to fitly pair these 
mentally incongruous diners. Mike Walsh once horrified 
the shrinking and saintly Mrs. Franklin Pierce at a state- 
dinner by the story of his going " a fishing on Sunday ; " 
while Hon. Mr. Mudsill, of Mudtown, has been known to 
regale dainty Madame Mimosa, of Mignonnette Manor, 
between the courses, with his hatred of flummeries and 
French dishes, and his devotion to pork and beans and 
slapjacks. 

The President and his wife receive the guests in the 
Red Room at seven o'clock. Mrs. President is always 
attired in full evening dress, with laces and jewels, and 
her lady guests likewise, while each gentleman rejoices in 
a swallow-tail, white or tinted gloves, and white necktie. 
The President leads the way to the state-table with the 
wife of the senator the oldest in ofiice, while Mrs. Presi- 
dent brings up the rear of the small procession with the 
senatorial husband of the President's lady companion. 
Six wine glasses and a bouquet of flowers garnish each 
plate. From twelve to thirty courses are served, and the 
middle of the feast is marked by the serving of frozen 
punch. After hours of sitting, serving and eating, the 
procession returns to the Red Room in the order that it 
left it. Then, after a few moments of conversation, it 
disperses, — its honored individuals more than once heard 
to say in private, "Such a bore." Yet what an ado 
they would make if not invited to discover for them- 
selves the tiresome splendor and fit of indigestion attend- 
ant upon a state-dinner. 

Leaving the state dining-room behind, we pass through 
the western wing into the conservatory, one of the largest 
in the country. It is a favorite resort for lady and gen- 



174 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

tlemen promenaders on reception days, lined, as it is, on 
either side with the bloom and fragrance of rare exotics. 
A large aquarium stands at one end, and a short passage 
and nights of steps lead down to a greenhouse and 
grapery filled with flowers and luscious fruit. Three 
other greenhouses flourish in the gardens west of the 
mansion. 

The White House contains thirty-one rooms. Except- 
ing the family dining-room, every one on the first floor is 
devoted to state purposes. The basement contains eleven 
rooms, used as kitchens, pantries and butler's rooms. These 
are open, spacious, comfortable and cheerful to the sight. 
On the second floor, the six rooms of the north front are 
used as chambers by the Presidential family. The south 
front has seven rooms — the ante-chamber, audience room, 
cabinet room, private office of the president, and the ladies' 
parlors. The ladies' or private parlor is furnished with 
ebony, covered with blue satin, with hangings of blue 
satin and lace. The daughter of the house has a blue 
boudoir lined with mirrors — its pale blue carpet strewn 
with rose-buds. The state bedroom of this floor is a 
grand apartment, furnished with rose-wood and crimson 
satin ; its walls hang with purple and gold. The bedstead 
is high, massive, carved and canopied, its damask curtains 
hanging from a gilded hoop near the ceiling. Before the 
bed lie cushions for the feet ; against the walls stand two 
stately wardrobes, with full length mirrors lining their 
doors, while arm-chairs and couches, deeply cushioned, are 
scattered over the velvet carpet. Its articles of furniture 
are stained with purple devices — national, historical scenes, 
and have for their arms the American Eagle. The ceiling 
is profusely frescoed, and hung with a central chandelier, 



WHAT MAY BE SEEK WITHIN. 175 

while in the winter a coal fire, under the marble mantle, 
suffuses the sumptuous room with a genial glow. One of 
the curiosities of the chamber is a cigar-case, inlaid with 
pearls and mosaics of wood from China, presented to Pres- 
ident Grant by Captain Ainmon, of the United States 
Navy. 

The Secretaries' room, on this floor, is a large airy apart- 
ment, with mahogany furniture, set there in Martin Van 
Buren's time, with green curtains, twenty-five years old, 
on the windows. The President's business and reception- 
room is a large apartment, looking out on the southern 
grounds, and carpeted with crimson and white. A large 
black walnut table, surrounded with chairs, stands in the 
centre of the room. It is furnished with black walnut 
desks and sofas. On the mantel stands a clock which tells 
the time of day and the day of the month, and which is a 
thermometer and barometer besides. The walls are high, 
and frescoed on a yellow ground tint. Tapestry and lace 
curtains are looped back from the windows, which look 
down upon the lovely southern grounds, and to the river, 
gleaming at intervals through the foliage beyond. 

The stateliest room on this floor is the library, used in 
Mrs. John Adams' time as a reception-room, furnished 
then in crimson. It was almost bookless till Mr. Filmore's 
administration, when it was fitted up as a library, and 
many books were added during the administration of 
President Buchanan. It is now lined with heavy mahog- 
any book-cases, finished with solid oak, covered with 
maroon. It is sometimes used by the President as an offi- 
cial reception-room, and sometimes as an evening loung- 
ing-place for the Presidential family and their guests. 

On the north lawn of the President's house^ which in 



176 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Jefferson's time was a barren, stony, unfenced waste, 
under the green arcade made by glorious trees, now stands 
a bronze statue of Jefferson. It was presented to the 
government by Captain Levy, of the United States' army, 
who in 1840 owned Monticello. 

From the great portico, we look beyond this statue, 
across Pennsylvania avenue, to an equestrian image of 
|ktckson, rearing frantically and preposterously in the 
centre of Lafayette square. Lovely Lafayette square, laid 
out by Downing — perfect in blending tint and outline, 
flower of music parks ! Beyond its trees we catch a 
glimpse of its encircling historic houses, and of the brown 
ivy-hanging walls of St. John's venerable church, its tiny 
and old time tower showing so picturesquely against the 
evening sky. 

The avenue of lofty trees on the west side of the Presi- 
dent's house — beneath whose shade, in the dimness of the 
night, Lincoln used to take his solitary walk, and carry his 
heavy heart to the War Department — were planted by 
John Quincy Adams. No swelling tree-crowned knolls, 
no grassy glades could be more restful to the sight than 
the southern grounds of the President's house. From its 
height it looks down upon this rolling park, reaching now 
to the Potomac, bounded by its gleaming waters, on which 
so many white sails drift, and doze, and dream in the 
languid summer weather. 



CHAPTER XX. . 
LADIES OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 

A Morning Dream — Wives and Daughters of the Presidents — Memories of 
Martha Washington — An Average Matron of the 18th Century — Educa- 
tional Disadvantages — Comparisons — A Well- Regulated Lady — A Useful 
Wife — Warm Words of Abigail Adams — Advantages of Having a Dis- 
tinguished Husband — A Modern Lucretia — Washington's Inauguration 
Suit — An Awkward Position for a Lady — A Primitive Levie — Festivities 
in Franklin Square ! — Decorous Ideas of the Father of His Country — 
The Government on Its Travels — Transporting the Household Gods — 
Keeping Early Hours — Primitive Customs — A Dignified Conge — Much- 
Shaken Hands — Remembrances of a Past Age — An English Manufacturer 
" Struck with Awe " — Very Questionable Humility — The Room in which 
Washington Died — Days of Widowhood — A Wife's Congratulations — A 
True Woman — Domestic Affairs at the White House — An Unfinished 
Mansion — Interesting Details — A Woman's Influence — A Monument 
Wanted — Devotion of a Husband — The " Single Life " — Theodocia Burr 
and Katherine Chase — "Zerees" Summarily Abolished — Disappointed 
Belles — An Extraordinary Reception — Blacked His Own Boots — A Dig- 
nified Foreigner Shocked — Governmental Enquiries — Womanly Indig- 
nation — The Poet Pardoned — "The Sweetest Creature in Virginia" — ■ 
A Daughter's Affection. 

SITTING- ' m the lovely Blue Room this June morning, 
the breezes from the Potomac floating through the 
closed blinds and lace curtains, drifting over the mounds 
of flowers which, rising high above the great vases, fill 
all the air with fragrance, I evoke from the past a com- 
pany of fair and stately women who have dwelt under 
this roof, or influenced the life and happiness of men who 
have ruled the nation. 

12 



178 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

First, Martha Washington. To be sure, she never 
reigned in the Blue Eoom ; but who can recall the wives 
of the Presidents and not see the very first, the serenely 
beautiful old lady whose face is so familiar to us all. 

In herself, Martha Washington was in no wise a remark- 
able woman. Personally, she was a fair representative of 
the average American matron of the eighteenth century. 
I say American, for whatever may be her right to boast 
of superior educational advantages to-day, in the time of 
Martha Washington and Abigail Adams, New England 
ignored utterly the education of her women. They were 
shut out even from the Boston High-School, because they 
had flocked to it in such numbers in pursuit of knowl- 
edge. While her brother went to Harvard, the girl of 
Massachusetts, if taught at all, was self-taught. Massachu- 
setts had no right to boast over Virginia in that day. 
The daughters of the cavalier probably were oftener 
taught to dance and to play the spinnet than the daughters 
of the Puritans ; but neither could spell, nor many more than 
barely read. But had Martha Washington enjoyed the 
highest mental privileges, she would never have been known 
to the world as an intellectual woman, or as a woman who, 
by any impulse of her unassisted nature, would ever have 
risen above the commonplace. She could spin, but she 
could not spell. She could bask in the warmth of the boun- 
tiful home whose heavy cares were all carried by her illus- 
trious husband. She could pack the family coach with 
delicacies, and go through storm and mud once a year to 
his camp, when the perils of his country had made him its 
deliverer ; but it is doubtful if any impulse of her soul 
would ever have roused her to the majestic eloquence of 
Abigail Adams, who, when she read the English King's 



A CHKISTIAN LADY's PKAYER. 179 

proclamation to his rebellious colonies, with her little chil- 
dren about her in the depth of the night, wrote to her 
absent husband : " This intelligence will make a plain 
path for you, though a dangerous one. I could not join 
to-day in the petition of our worthy pastor for a recon- 
ciliation between our no longer parent state, but tyrant 
state, and these colonies. Let us separate ; they are un- 
worthy to be our brethren. Let us renounce them, and 
instead of supplications as formerly for their prosperity 
and happiness ; let us beseech the Almighty to blast their 
counsels and bring to naught all their devices." 

Abigail Adams comes down to posterity, independently 
of all relations to others, as one of the grandest women 
of her time. Martha Washington's only claim to venera- 
tion is because she was the wife of Washington. As his 
wife, her homely virtues and moral rectitude show to un- 
clouded advantage. Personally, her most marked charac- 
teristics were her strong natural sense of propriety and 
fitness and high moral qualities. In these, if she never 
added lustre to it, she always honored the name of Wash- 
ington. We see the former characteristic in the fact, that 
during the Revolution she never wore foreign or costly 
attire. While all the outer affairs of the estate, to their 
minutest detail, were superintended by General Washing- 
ton, in addition to the mighty burdens of state which he 
bore, Mrs. Washington superintended her handmaidens 
and spinning-wheels. Looms were constantly plying in 
her house, and General Washington wore, at his first inau- 
guration, a full suit of fine cloth woven in his own house. 
At a ball given in New Jersey, in honor of herself, Martha 
Washington appeared in "simple russet gown," with a 
white handkerchief about her neck. To the state levees 



180 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

of New York and Philadelphia she carried the same stately 
simplicity. A lady of the olden time, a daughter of Vir- 
ginia, her ideas of court forms and etiquette had all been 
received from the mother country. Hers was the difficult 
task to harmonize aristocratic exclusiveness with republican 
plainness. She was never to forget that she was the wife 
of the President of a Republic,- — and also never to forget 
that she was to command the respect of the old mon- 
archies who were ready to despise everything poor and 
crude in the efforts of the new government to maintain 
itself in poverty, difficulty and inexperience. Thus the 
social levees of the first President of the United States, at 
No. 3, Franklin square, New York, were held under the 
most rigorous and exclusive rules. They were only open 
to persons of privileged rank and degree, and they could 
not enter unless attired in full dress. The receptions of 
Mrs. Washington merely reproduced, on a smaller plan, 
the customs and ceremonies of foreign courts, 

The first President and his wife never forgot then per- 
sonal dignity, and never forgot that they represented a re- 
public which was already an object of interested scrutiny 
to the whole civilized world. President Washington wrote 
to his friend Mrs. Macaulay: "Mrs. Washington's ideas 
coincide with my own as to simplicity of dress and every- 
thing which can tend to support propriety of character 
without partaking of the follies of luxury and ostentation." 

In the second year of Washington's administration, the 
-government was removed to Philadelphia, there to remain 
for the next ten years. The household furniture of the 
Washingtons was moved thither by slow and weary pro- 
cesses of land and water, the President, in addition to his 
public cares, superintending personally the preparation and 



GOING TO BED EARLY. 181 

embarkation of every article himself. Mrs. Washington 
was sick at the time, but the following year, the house of 
Robert Morris having been taken by the corporation, as 
the President's house, Mrs. Washington again opened her 
drawing-rooms from seven to ten p. m. Sensible woman ! 
No haggard and faded beauties dancing all night, faded and 
old before their time, owed their wasted lives and powers 
to her. In Philadelphia and New York, when the clock's 
hand pointed to ten, she arose with affable dignity, and, 
bowing to all, retired, leaving her guests to do likewise. 
With this action, it was unnecessary to repeat the announce- 
ment which she made at the first levee held by her in New 
York, viz. : " General Washington retires at ten o'clock, and 
I usually precede him. Good-night." 

At these levees Mrs. Washington sat. The guests were 
grouped in a circle, round which the President passed^ 
speaking politely to each one, but never shaking hands. 
It was reserved to a later generation to shake that poor 
member till it has to be poulticed after official greetings. 
It was the habit of Mrs. Washington to return the calls of 
those who were privileged to pay her visits. A Philadel- 
phia lady who, as a child, remembered her, wrote : " It 
was Mrs. Washington's custom to return visits on the third 
day. In calling on my mother she would send a footman 
over, who would knock loudly and announce Mrs. Wash- 
ington, who would then come over with Mr. Lear. Her 
manners were very easy, pleasant and unceremonious, 
with the characteristics of other Virginia ladies." 

An English manufacturer, who breakfasted with the 
President's family in 1794, says : 

" I was struck with awe and veneration when I recollected 
that I was now in the presence of the great Washington, the 



182 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

noble and wise benefactor of the world Mrs. Wash- 
ington herself, made tea and coffee for us. On the table were two 
small plates of sliced tongue and dry toast, bread and butter; 
but no broiled fish, as is the custom here. She struck me as being 
somewhat older than the President, though I understand both 
Were born the same year. She was extremely simple in her 
dress, and wore a very plain cap, with her gray hair turned up 
under it." 

It is as the wife of "Washington, through sentiments 
called out by the greatness of his character and the love 
which she bore him, that the moral capacity of Martha 
Washington's nature ever approaches greatness. In her re- 
ply to Congress, who asked that the body of George Wash- 
ington might be placed beneath a monument in the capitol 
which his patriotism had clone so much to rear, her words 
rise to the patriotic grandeur of Abigail Adams, they 
could not rise higher. She says : 

" Taught by that great example, which I have so long had 
before me, never to oppose my private wishes to the public will, 
I must consent to the request made by Congress, which you 
have had the goodness to transmit to me, and in doing this, I 
need not, I cannot say what a sacrifice of individual feeling I 
make to a sense of public duty." 

But it is in the little room at Mount Vernon, in which 
she died, that Martha Washington, as a woman, comes 
nearest to us. Here one can realize how utterly done 
with earth, its pangs and glory, was the soul who shut 
herself within its narrow walls, there to take on immortal- 
ity. The rooms of Washington below, a thrifty mechanic 
of the present day would think too small and shabby for 
him. Here he died. And when the great soul went forth 



a wife's letter. 183 

to the unknown, as a human presence to inhabit it never 
more, the wife also went forth, and never again crossed its 
threshold. Here, in this little room, scarcely more than a 
closet, surrounded only by the simplest necessaries of ex- 
istence, Martha Washington lived out the lonely days of 
her desolate widowhood — and here she died. 

Abigail Adams was the first wife of a President who 
ever presided at the White House — the President's house, 
as it was so fitly called in those days. Only in this latter 
time of degenerate English has it swelled into the " Ex- 
ecutive Mansion." 

In February, 1797, John Adams was elected President 
of the United States, to succeed President Washington. 
From her country home in Massachusetts, Mrs. Adams 
sent to her husband the following recognition of his ex- 
altation to be chief ruler of the United States : 

" You have this day to declare yourself head of a nation. 
4 And now, O Lord, my God, thou hast made thy servant ruler 
over the people, give unto him an understanding heart, that he 
may know how to go out and to come in before this great people ; 
that he may discern between good and bad. For who is able to 
judge this, thy so great a people ? ' were the words of a royal 
sovereign, and not less applicable to him who is invested with 
the chief magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown 
nor the robes of royalty. My thoughts and meditations are 
with you, though personally absent ; and my petitions to heaven 
are, that the things which make for your peace may not be hid- 
den from your eyes. My feelings are not those of pride or 
ostentation upon the occasion. They are solemnized by a sense 
of the obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties 
connected with it. That you may be enabled to discharge them 
with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to your 



184 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

country, and with satisfaction to this great people, shall be the 
daily prayer of yours — " 

In such exaltation of spirit, and with such grandeur of 
speech, did the wife of the second President receive the 
fact of her husband's elevation. As devout as Deborah, 
her utterance is equally marked by its comprehensiveness 
of view, its devotion and self-forgetfulness. No visions of 
personal finery, of fashionable entertainments and show, 
gleam through the grand utterances of this majestic 
woman. And yet no pictures of the White House, no 
sketches of the social life of her time begin to be as graphic, 
frequent and " telling," as those of Abigail Adams. Noth- 
ing has been more quoted than her sketch of the White 
House as she found it. 

" The house is upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about 
thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments in proper 
order, and perform the ordinary business of the house and 
stables — an establishment very well proportioned to the Pres- 
ident's salary. The lighting the apartments from the kitchen 
to parlors and chambers, is a tax indeed, and the fires we are 
obliged to keep to secure us from daily agues is another very 
cheering comfort. To assist us in this castle, and render less at- 
tendance necessary, bells are wholly wanting, not one single one 
being hung through the whole house, and promises are all you 
can obtain. This is so great an inconvenience that I know not 
what to do or how to do. The ladies from Georgetown and in 
the city have many of them visited me. Yesterday I returned 
fifteen visits. But such a place as Georgetown appears ! Why, 
our Milton is beautiful. But no comparisons ; if they put me 
up bells, and let me have wood enough to keep fires, I design to 
he pleased. But surrounded with forests, can you believe that 
wood is not to be had, because people cannot be found to 

cut and cart it We have indeed come into a new 

country. 



THE WHITE HOUSE, SEVENTY TEAES AGO. 185 

" The house is made habitable, but there is not a single apart- 
ment finished, and all within side, except the plastering, has 

been done since B. came If the twelve years in which 

this place has been considered as the future seat of govern- 
ment, had been improved as they would have been in New 
England, very many of the present inconveniences would have 
been removed. It is a beautiful spot, capable of any improve- 
ment, and the more I view it the more I am delighted with it. 

" The ladies are impatient for a drawing-room : I have no 
looking-glasses but dwarfs, for this house ; and a twentieth 
part lamps enough to light it. My tea-china is more than 

half missing You can scarcely believe that here in 

this wilderness city I should find my time so occupied as it is. 
My visitors, some of them, came three or four miles. The 

return of one of them is the work of one day We 

have not the least fence, yard, or other conveniences without, 
and the great unfinished audience-room — (the East room) I 
make a drying-room of to hang my clothes in. Six chambers 
are made comfortable ; two lower rooms, one for a common 
parlor and one for a ball-room." 

Abigail Adams is an illustrious example of the grandeur 
of human character. She proved in herself how potent 
an individual may be, and that individual a woman, in 
spite of caste, of sex, or the restrictions of human law or 
condition. She never went to school in her life, yet her 
thoughtful utterances will live where the labored utter- 
ances of her scholarly husband are forgotten. She was 
less than a year the mistress of the President's house, yet 
she has lived ever since in memory a grand model to all 
who succeed her. The daughter of a country clergyman, 
the wife of a patriotic and ambitious man, whether she 
gathered her children about her or sent them forth across 
stormy seas, while she left herself desolate ; whether she 



186 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

stood the wife of the Republican Minister before the 
haughty Charlotte in the stateliest and proudest court of 
Europe ; whether she presided in the President's house in 
the new Capital or in the wilderness, or wrote to states- 
men and grandchildren in her own lowly house in Quiney, 
in prosperity or sorrow, in youth and in age, in life and 
in death, always she was the regnant woman, devout, 
wise, patriotic, proud, humble and loving. 

Her pictures of the social life of her time are among 
the most acute, lively and graphic on record. While in 
her letters to her son, to her husband, to Jefferson and 
other statesmen, we find some of the grandest utterances 
of the Revolutionary period. Cut off by her sex from 
active participation in the struggles and triumphs of the 
men of her time, not one of them would have died more 
gladly or grandly than she, for liberty ; denied the power 
of manhood, she made the most of the privileges of 
womanhood. She instilled into the souls Of her children 
great ideas ; she inspired her husband by the hourly sight 
of a grand example; she gave, through them, her life- 
long service to the State, and she gave to her country 
and to posterity her spotless and heroic memory. Tardy 
Massachusetts ! You build monuments to your sons, and 
ignore the fame of your illustrious daughters. When in 
the Pantheon of the States you shall place the sculptured 
forms of two of your patriots, honor your ancient fame 
by giving to posterity the majestic lineaments of the great 
woman of the Revolution — Abigail Adams. 

In her portrait, Stuart gives us Minerva in a lace cap. 
Dainty and delicate, it softens without veiling her august 
features. The exquisite lace ruff about the throat, the 
lace shawl upon the shoulders, all indicate the finest of 



THE THREAD OF A SINGLE LIFE. 187 

feminine tastes, while the broad brow, wide eyes, keenly 
cut nose, firm chin and slightly imperious mouth, proclaim 
the proud and powerful intellect, and the high head the 
commanding moral nature of the woman. 

The wife of Jefferson died in her youth. His love for 
her was the passion of his life. In his love, and in his 
existence, she was never supplanted. Ever after, he lived 
in his children, his grand-children, his books and the 
affairs of State. 

Jefferson had two daughters, the only two of his chil- 
dren who survived to mature life. One of these, Maria, 
who in childhood went to Paris in the care of Mrs. Adams, 
and who was remarkable for her beauty and the loveliness 
of her nature, died in early womanhood. She was indiffer- 
ent to her own beauty, and almost resented the admiration 
which it called forth, exclaiming, "You praise me for that 
because you can not praise me for better things." She 
set an extraordinary value upon talent, believing that the 
possession of it alone could make her the worthy com- 
panion of her father. She was most tenderly beloved by 
him, and, at the time of her early death, he wrote to his 
friend, Governor Page : " Others may lose of their abun- 
dance ; but I, of my want, have lost even the half of that 
I had. My evening prospects now hang on the slender 
thread of a single life." This "single" life was that of 
Martha Jefferson Randolph. She lived to be not only 
the domestic comforter, but the intellectual companion of 
her father. She was one of that type of daughters, of 
which, in our own country, Theodocia Burr and Katherine 
Chase have been such illustrious examples. These women, 
equally beautiful, intellectual, and charming, identified 



188 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

themselves not only with the private interests, but 
with the public life and political ambitions of their 
fathers. 

Had Martha Jefferson been less womanly and domestic, 
she might have made herself famous as a belle, a wit, or a 
scholar. Married at seventeen, the mother of twelve 
children, seven of whom were daughters, the fine quality 
of her intellect, and the nobility of her soul were all 
merged into a life spent in their guidance, and in devo- 
tion and service to her husband and father. The mother 
of five children at the time of her father's inauguration as 
President of the United States, separated from Washington 
by a long and fatiguing journey, which could only be 
performed by coach and horse-travel, Mrs. Randolph never 
made but two visits to the President's house, during his 
two terms of office. Her son, James Madison Randolph, 
was born in the " White House." 

Jefferson began his Presidency with a certain ostentation 
of democracy. One of the first declarations of his admin- 
istration was, " Levees are done away." Remembering 
what importance was attached to these assemblies by 
Washington and Adams, and what grand court occasions 
they were made, we can imagine the disapprobation with 
which this mandate was received by the " belles of society." 
A party of these gathered in force, and, all gaily attired, 
proceeded to the President's house. On his return from a 
horseback ride he was informed that a large number of 
ladies were in the " Levee room " waiting for him. Cov- 
ered with dust, spurs on, and whip in hand, he proceeded 
to the drawing-room. Shade of Washington ! He told 
them he was glad to see them, and asked them to remain. 
These belles and beauties received his polite salutations 



AMUSING DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 189 

with how much delight we may fancy. They never came 
again. 

A Virginian accustomed to the service of slaves, as the 
President of the United States, Jefferson blacked his own 
boots. A foreign functionary, a stickler for etiquette, 
paid him a visit of ceremony one morning, and found him 
engaged in this pleasing employment. Jefferson apolo- 
gized, saying, that being a plain man, he did not like to 
trouble his servants. The foreign grandee departed, de- 
claring that no government could long survive, whose 
head was his own shoe-black. Jefferson gave great offense 
to the English Minister, Mr. Merry, because he took Mrs. 
Madison, to whom he happened to be talking, into dinner 
instead of Mrs. Merry. Mr. Merry made it an official 
offense which was reported to his government. Mr. Madi- 
son wrote to Mr. Monroe, who was then Minister to England, 
that he might be ready to answer the call of the British 
government for explanations. Mr. Monroe wrote back that 
he was glad of it, for the wife of a British under-secretary 
had recently been given precedence to Mrs. Monroe, in 
being escorted to the dinner table. Nevertheless, Mrs. 
Merry's nose never came down from the air, and she never 
again crossed the threshold of the President's house. 

The same year Jefferson aroused the ire of Thomas 
Moore, then twenty-four years of age, and without fame, 
save in his own country. The President, from his altitude 
of six feet two-and-a-half inches, looked down on the 
curled and perfumed little poet, and spoke a word and 
passed on. This was an indignity that London's and 
Dublin's darling never pardoned, and he went back to 
lampoon, not only America, but the President. One of 
his attacks came into the hands of Martha Randolph, who, 



190 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON". 

deeply indignant, placed it before her father in his library. 
He broke into an amused laugh. Years afterwards, when 
Moore's Irish melodies appeared, Jefferson, looking them 
over, exclaimed : " Why, this is the little man who sat- 
irized me so ! Why, he is a poet after all. And from 
that moment Moore had a place beside Burns' in Jeffer- 
son's library. 

John Randolph, her father's political foe, said of Martha 
Jefferson : " She is the sweetest creature in Virginia," 
and we all know that John Randolph believed that noth- 
ing '" sweet" or even endurable existed outside of Virginia. 
In adversity and sorrow, in poverty and trial, in age as in 
youth, the steadfast sweetness of character, and elevation 
of nature, which made Martha Jefferson remarkable in 
prosperity, shone forth with transcendent lustre when all 
external accessories had fled. The daughter of a man 
called a free-thinker, she all her life was sweetly, simply, 
devoutly religious. In her letters to her daughter, " Sep- 
timia," she draws up nearer to her tender soul in its 
heavenly love and charity. This daughter, to his latest 
breath, was to Jefferson, the soul of his soul. After life 
retirement she not only entertained his guests, and minis- 
tered to his personal comforts, but shared intellectually 
all his thoughts and studies. Six months before her death, 
Sully painted her portrait. Her daughter says : 

" I accompanied her to Mr. Sully's studio, and, as she took 
her seat before him, she said playfully : ' Mr. Sully, I shall 
never forgive you if you paint me with wrinkles.' 

" I quickly interrupted, ' Paint her just as she is, Mr. Sully, 
the picture is for me.' 

" He said, * I shall paint you, Mrs. Randolph, as I remember 
you tAventy years ago.' 



A LITTLE QUIET FLATTEKY. 191 

" The picture does represent her younger — but failed to 
restore the expression of health and cheerful, ever-joyous 
vivacity which her countenance then habitually wore. My 
mother's face owed its greatest charm to its expressiveness, 
beaming, as it ever was, with kindness, good humor, gayety and 
wit. She was tall and very graceful ; her complexion naturally 
fair, her hair of a dark chestnut color, very long and very 
abundant. Her manners were uncommonly attractive from their 
vivacity, amiability and high breeding, and her conversation was 
charming." 



CHAPTER XXI. 

WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. 

A Social Queen — " The Most Popular Person in the United States " — " Dolly 
Madison's " Reign — The Slow Days of Old — A Young Lady Rides Five 
Hundred Miles on Horseback — Travelling Under Difficulties — Political 
Pugnacity — A Peaceful Policy — Formality versus Hospitality — Big Dishes 
Laughed at — A Foreign Minister Criticises — Advantages of a Good Mem- 
ory — Funny Adventure of a Rustic Youth — A Strange Pocketful — Putting 
Him at his Ease — Doleful Visage of a New President — Getting Rid of a 
Burden — A Brave Lady — She Writes to Her Sister — Waiting in Sus- 
pense — Taking Care of Cabinet Papers — " Disaffection Stalks Around 
Us " — " Col. C." very Prudently " Skedaddles " — One Hundred " Braves " 
Skedaddle with Him — " French John " Makes a Proposition — He Desires 
to "Blow up the British "—John "Doesn't See It "—Watching and 
Waiting — Flight — Unscrewing the Picture — After the War — Brilliant 
Receptions — Mrs. Madison's Snuff Box — Clay Takes a Pinch — " This is 
My Polisher ! " — " Tempora Mutantur " — Two Plain Old Ladies from the 
West — " If I Jest Kissed you " — They Depart in Peace — Days of Trouble 
and Care — Manuscripts Purchased by Congress — The " Franking Privi- 
lege " Conferred upon Mrs. Madison — Honored by Congress — Last Days 
of a Good Woman — Mrs. Monroe — A Severe and Aristocratic Woman — 
" La Belle Americaine " — Madame Lafayette in Prison — Fennimore 
Cooper Expresses an Opinion — Grotesque Anomalies at a Reception — The 
Crown and the Eagle. 

PRESIDENT JEFFERSON showed his personal appre- 
ciation as well as his official recognition of Mrs. 
Madison, both in his letters to his daughters and in the 
fact that Mrs. Madison, when the wife of the Secretary of 
State, presided at Jefferson's table during the absence of 
his own family. But it was as the wife of the fourth 



"roughing it" seventy teaes ago. 193 

President of the United States that she inaugurated the 
golden reign of the President's house. 

She was the only woman of absolute social genius, who 
ever presided in this house. Thus the beneficence and 
brilliancy of her reign was never approached before her 
time, and has never been equalled since. 

It is a rare combination of gifts and graces which pro- 
duces the pre-eminent social queen, in any era or in any 
sphere. Mrs. Madison seemed to possess them all. During 
the administration of her husband she was openly declared 
to be "the most popular person in the United States;" 
and now, after the lapse of generations, after hosts of 
women, bright, beautiful and admired, have lived, reigned, 
died, and are forgotten, "Dolly Madison" seems to abide 
to-day in Washington, a living and beloved presence. 
The house in which her old age was spent, and from which 
she passed to heaven, is every day pointed out to the 
stranger as her abode. Her face abides with us as the 
face of a friend, while her words and deeds are constantly, 
recalled as authority, unquestioned and benign. 

When she began her reign in Washington, steamboats 
were the wonder of the world; railroads undreamed of; 
turnpike roads scarcely begun; the stagecoach slow, in- 
convenient, and cumbersome. The daughter of one sena- 
tor, who wished to enjoy the delights of the new capital, 
came five hundred miles on horseback by her father's side. 
The wife of a member rode fifteen hundred miles on horse- 
back, passed through several Indian settlements, and spent 
nights without seeing a house in which she could lodge. 
Under such difficulties did lowly women come to Wash- 
ington, and out of such material were blended the society 
of ' that conspicuous era. 

13 



194 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

When Mrs. Madison entered the President's house, the 
strife between the democratic and republican parties was at 
its highest. Washington, above all party, had yet declared 
himself the advocate of the unity and force of the central 
power. Jefferson had been the President of the opposi- 
tion, who wished the supremacy of the masses to overrule 
that of the higher classes. On these contending factions 
Mrs. Madison shed equally the balm of her benign nature. 
Not because she was without opinions, but because she 
was without malignity or rancor of spirit. Born and 
reared a " Friend," she brought the troubled elements of 
political society together in the bonds of peace. She pos- 
sessed, in pre-eminent degree, the power of intuitive adapt- 
ation to individuals, however diversified in character, and 
the exquisite tact in dealing with them, which always 
characterizes the true social queen. She loved human 
beings and delighted in their fellowship. She never for- 
got an old friend, and never neglected the opportunity of 
making a new one. She banished from her drawing-room 
the stately forms and ceremonials which had made the re- 
ceptions of Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Adams very ele- 
gant and rather dreadful affairs. She was very hospitable, 
and a table bountifully loaded was her delight and pride. 
The abundance and size of her dishes were objects of ridi- 
cule to a Foreign Minister, even when she entertained as 
the wife of the Secretary of State, he declaring that her 
entertainments were more like " a harvest home supper 
than the entertainment of a Cabinet Minister." 

Mrs. Madison never forgot the name of any person to 
whom she had been introduced, nor any incident con- 
nected with any person whom she knew. Able to sum- 
mon these at an instant's notice, she instinctively made 



ADVENTURE OF A RUSTIC YOUTH. 195 

each individual, who entered her presence, feel that he or 
she was an object of especial interest. Nor was this mere 
society-manners. Genial and warm-hearted, it was her 
happiness to make everybody feel as much at ease as pos- 
sible. This gentle kindness, the unknown and lowly shared 
equally with the highest in worldly station. At one of 
her receptions her attention was called to a rustic youth 
whose back was set against the wall. Here he stood as if 
nailed to it, till he ventured to stretch forth his hand and 
take a proffered cup of coffee. Mrs. Madison, according 
to her wont, wishing to relieve his embarrassment, and 
put him at his ease, walked up and spoke to him. The 
youth, astonished and overpowered, dropped the saucer, 
and unconsciously thrust the cup into his breeches pocket. 
"The crowd is so great, no one can avoid being jostled," 
said the gentle woman. "The servant will bring you 
another cup of coffee. Pray, how did you leave your 
excellent mother ? I had once the honor of knowing her, 
but I have not seen her for some years." Thus she talked, 
till she made him feel that she was his friend, as well as his 
mother's. In time, he found it possible to .dislodge the 
coffee cup from his pocket, and to converse with the Juno- 
like lady in a crimson turban, as if she were an old ac- 
quaintance. 

Like Amelia Opie, and other beautiful " Friends," who 
have shone amid " the world's people," Mrs. Madison de- 
lighted in deep warm colors, the very opposite of the sil- 
ver grays of a demure Quakeress. At the inauguration 
ball, when Jefferson, the outgoing President, came to re- 
ceive Madison, his successor, Mrs. Madison wore a robe of 
buff-colored velvet, a Paris turban with a bird of paradise 
plume, with pearls on her neck and arms. A chronicler 



196 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

of the event says that she "looked and moved a queen." 
Jefferson was all life and animation, while the new Presi- 
dent looked care-worn and pale. "Can you wonder at 
it?" said Jefferson. "My shoulders have just been freed 
from a heavy burden — his just laden with it." 

When a manager brought Mrs. Madison the first num- 
ber in the dance, she said, smiling : " I never dance ; what 
shall I do with it?" 

" Give it to the lady next to you," was the answer. 

"No, that would look like partiality." 

"Then I will," said the manager, and presented it to 
her sister. 

This lady, who filled every hour of prosperity with the 
rare sunshine of her nature, in the hour of trial was not 
found wanting, and in the face of clanger rose to the dig- 
nity of heroism. Her gallant stay in the White House, 
while her husband had gone to hold a council of war, and 
in spite of every entreaty to leave it, is a proud fact of our 
history. In vain friends brought a carriage to the door. 
She refused to enter it. The following well-known letter 
to her sister, proves how bravely, womanly was this hero- 
ine of the President's house. 

Tuesday, August 23, 1814. 

Dear Sister : — My husband left me yesterday to join 
•General Winder. He enquired anxiously whether I had the 
courage or firmness to remain in the President's house until his 
return, on the morrow, or succeeding day, and on my assurance 
that I had no fear but for him and the success of our army, he 
left me, beseeching me to take care of myself and of the Cabi- 
net papers, public and private. 

I have since received two dispatches from him, written with 
a pencil ; the last is alarming, because he desires that I should 



A LADY OF DETEEMINATION". 197 

be ready at a moment's warning, to enter my carriage and leave 
the city ; that the enemy seemed stronger than had been re- 
ported, and that it might happen that they would reach the city 
with intention to destroy it. ... I am accordingly ready ; I 
have pressed as many Cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one 
carriage ; our private property must be sacrificed, as it is impos- 
sible to procure wagons for its transportation. I am determined 
not to go myself, until I see Mr. Madison safe, and he can ac- 
company me — as I hear of much hostility toward him 

Disaffection stalks around us. My friends and acquaintances 
are all gone, even Colonel C. with his hundred men, who were 

stationed as a guard in this enclosure French John (a 

faithful domestic) with his usual activity and resolution offers 
to spike the cannon at the gate, and lay a train of powder which 
would blow up the British, should they enter the house. To 
the last proposition, I positively object, without being able, 
however, to make him understand why all advantages in war 
may not be taken. 

Wednesday morning, twelve o'clock. — Since sunrise, I have 
been turning my spy-glass in every direction and watching with 
unwearied anxiety, hoping to discover the aj)proach of my dear 
husband and his friends ; but, alas, I can descry only groups of 
military wandering in all directions, as if there was a lack of 
arms, or of spirits, to fight for their own firesides. 

Three o'clock. — Will you believe it, my sister ? we have had 
a battle, or a skirmish, near Bladensburg, and I am still here 
within sound of the cannon ! Mr. Madison comes not ; may 
God protect him ! Two messengers, covered with dust, came 

to bid me fly ; but I wait for him At this late hour 

a wagon has been procured ; I have filled it with the plate and 
most valuable portable articles belonging to the house ; whether 
it will reach its destination, the Bank of Maryland, or fall into 
the hands of British soldiery, events must determine. Our kind 
friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in 
a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the 
large picture of General Washington is secured ; and it requires 



198 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too 
tedious for these perilous moments ; I have ordered the frame to 
be broken and the canvas taken out ; it is done, and the precious 
portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York for 
safe-keeping. And now, dear sister, I must leave this house or 
the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it, by filling up 
the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write to 
you, or where I shall be to-morrow, I cannot tell ! 

On their return, the President and Mrs. Madison occu- 
pied a private house on Pennsylvania avenue till the 
White House was repaired. After it was rebuilt and the 
treaty of peace signed, the levees given in the East Room, 
in the winter of 1816, are said to have been the most 
resplendent ever witnessed in Washington. At these, 
congregated the Justices of the Supreme Court in their 
gowns, the Diplomatic Corps in glittering regalia, the 
Peace Commissioners and the officers of the late war in 
full dress, and the queen of the occasion in gorgeous robes 
and turban and bird of paradise plumes. 

At one of these Presidential banquets Mrs. Madison 
offered Mr. Clay a pinch of snuff from her beautiful box, 
taking one herself. She then put her hand in her pocket, 
took out a bandanna handkerchief, applied it to her nose 
and said : " Mr. Clay, this is for rough work," and this, 
touching the few remaining grains of snuff with a fine lace 
handkerchief, "is my polisher." This anecdote is an em- 
phatic comment on the change of customs, even in the 
most polished society. If Mrs. Grant, to-day, were to per- 
petrate such an act at one of her levees, the fact that it 
stands recorded against the graceful, gracious and glorious 
Dolly Madison would not save her from the taint of the 
act being " underbred " and suggestive of the land of snuff 
dippers. 



"IF I JEST KISSED YOU." 199 

Another story of Mrs. Madison illustrates the real kind- 
ness of her heart. Two plain old ladies from the West, 
halting in Washington for a single night, yet most anxious 
to behold the President's famous and popular wife before 
their departure, meeting an old gentleman on the street, 
timidly asked him to show them the way to the Presi- 
dent's house. Happening to be an acquaintance of Mrs. 
Madison, he conducted them to the White House. The 
President's family were at breakfast, but Mrs. Mad- 
ison good-naturedly came out to them wearing a dark 
gray dress with a white apron, and a linen handkerchief 
pinned around her neck. Not overcome by her plumage, 
and set at ease by her welcome, when they rose to depart 
one said : " P'rhaps you would n't mind if I jest kissed 
you, to tell my gals about." 

Mrs. Madison, not to be outdone, kissed each of her 
guests, who planted their spectacles on their noses with 
delight, and then departed. 

Poverty compelled Martha Jefferson to part with Mon- 
ticello after her father's death, and the same cruel foe 
forced Mrs. Madison to sell Montpelier in her widowhood. 

A special message of President Jackson to Congress, 
concerning the contents of a letter from Mrs. Madison, 
offering to the government her husband's manuscript 
record of the debates in Congress of the convention dur- 
ing the years 1782-1787, caused Congress to purchase it 
of her, as a national work, for the sum of thirty thousand 
dollars. In a subsequent act Congress gave to Mrs. Mad- 
ison the honorary privilege of copyright in foreign coun- 
tries. The degree of veneration in which she was held 
may be judged by the fact that Congress conferred upon 
Mrs. Madison the franking privilege and unanimously 



200 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

voted her a seat upon the Senate floor whenever she hon- 
ored it with her presence ; two privileges never conferred 
upon any other American woman. 

The last twelve years of her life were spent in Wash- 
ington, in a house still standing on Lafayette square. 
Here, on New Year's day and Fourth of July, she held 
public receptions, the dignitaries of the nation, after 
paying their respects at the White House, passing directly 
to the abode of the venerable widow of the fourth Presi- 
dent of the United States — a woman who had honored 
her high station by her high qualities more than it could 
possibly honor her. 

She died at her home, Lafayette square, Washington, 
July, 1849, holding her mental faculties unimpaired to 
the last. In her later days, while suffering from great 
debility, she took extreme delight in having old letters 
read to her, whose associations were so remote that they 
were unknown to all about, but yet which brought back 
to her her own beloved past. She delighted, also, in 
listening to the reading of the Bible — and it was while 
hearing a portion of the gospel of St. John that she passed 
in peace into her last sleep. 

Mrs. Madison was not the last President's wife whom 
the dangers of war exalted to heroism. Yet, with a few 
exceptions, she has been followed by a line of ladies of 
average gifts and graces, whose domestic virtues and 
negative characters are seen but dimly through the re- 
flected glory of their President husbands' administrations. 
The faint outline which we catch of Mrs. Monroe is that 
of a severe and aristocratic woman, too well bred ever to 
be visibly moved by anything — at least in public. She 
was Elizabeth Kortright, of New York — an ex-British 



SAVED FKOM THE GUILLOTINE. 201 

officer's daughter, a helle who was ridiculed by her gay 
friends for having refused more brilliant adorers to accept 
a plain member of Congress. 

During Mr. Monroe's ministry to Paris, she was called 
" la helle Americaine" and entertained the most stately 
society of the old regime with great elegance. The only 
individual act which has survived her career, as the wife 
of the American minister to France, is her visit to Madame 
Lafayette in prison. The indignities heaped on this grand 
and truly great woman, were hard to be borne by an 
American, to whom the very name of Lafayette was en- 
deared. The carriage of the American minister appeared 
at the jail. Mrs. Monroe was at last conducted to the 
cell of the emaciated prisoner. The Marchioness, behold- 
ing the stranger sister woman," sank at her feet, too weak 
to utter her joy. That very afternoon she was to have 
been beheaded. Instead of the messenger commanding 
her to prepare for the guillotine, she beheld a woman and 
a friend ! From the first moment of its existence the 
American Republic had prestige in France. The visit of 
the American ambassadress changed the minds of the 
blood-thirsty tyrants. Madame Lafayette was liberated 
the next morning, — she gladly accepted her own freedom, 
that she might go and share the dungeon of her husband. 

The same quiet splendor of spirit and bearing reigned 
through Mrs. Monroe in the unfinished " White House." 
Mrs. Madison maintained the courtly forms copied from 
foreign courts — but the richness of her temperament and 
the warmth of her heart pervaded all the atmosphere 
around her with a genial glow. Mrs. Monroe mingled 
very little in the society of Washington, and secluded 
herself from the public gaze, except when the duties of 



202 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

her position compelled her to appear. Her love was for 
silence, obscurity, peace, not for bustle, confusion, or 
glare. Yet, even in her courtly reign, " the dear people " 
were many and strong enough to arise and push on to 
their rights in the " people's house." 

James Fennimore Cooper has left on record a letter de- 
scribing a state dinner and levee, during Mr. Monroe's 
time, and any one who has survived a latter-day jam at 
the President's house, will say it was precisely what a 
Presidential reception was in the stately Monroe day. Says 
Mr. Cooper: 

The evening at the White House, or drawing-room, as it is 
sometimes pleasantly called, is in fact, a collection of all classes 
of people who choose to go to the trouble and expense of ap- 
pearing in dresses suited to an evening party. I am not sure 
that even dress is very much regarded, for I certainly saw a 

good many there in boots Squeezing through a crowd, 

we achieved a passage to a part of the room where Mrs. Monroe 
was standing, surrounded by a bevy of female friends. After 
making our bow here, we sought the President. The latter had 
posted himself at the top of the room, where he remained most 
of the evening, shaking hands with all who approached. Near 
him stood the Secretaries and a great number of the most dis- 
tinguished men of the nation. Besides these, one meets here a 
great variety of people in other conditions of life. I have 
known a cartman to leave his horse in the street, and go into 
the reception room, to shake hands with the President. He 
offended the good taste of all present, because it was not thought 
decent that a laborer should come in a dirty dress on such an 
occasion ; but while he made a mistake in this particular, he 
proved how well he understood the difference between govern- 
ment and society. 

It is very doubtful, however, if a cartman would have 



B0EE0WING CLOTHES FOE A EECEPTION. 203 

found it possible to have paid his respects to the govern- 
ment in the person of Washington, in such a plight. Such 
a visitor in the Blue Room, to-day, would make a sen- 
sation. In spite of the "cartman," we read that at Mrs. 
Monroe's drawing-rooms "elegance of dress was abso- 
lutely required." On one occasion, Mr. Monroe refused 
admission to a near relative, who happened not to have a 
suit of small-clothes and silk hose, in which to present 
himself at a public reception. He was driven to the ne- 
cessity of borrowing. 

When the Monroes entered the White House, it had been 
partly rebuilt from its burning in 1814, but it could boast 
of few comforts, and no elegance. The ruins of the for- 
mer building lay in heaps about the mansion ; the grounds 
were not fenced, and the street before it in such a con- 
dition that it was an hourly sight to see several four-horse 
wagons "stalled" before the house. In the early part of 
the administration, the East Room was the play-room of 
Mrs. Monroe's daughters. It was during her reign here 
that the stately furniture, which now stands in the East 
Room, was bought by the government in Paris. Each ar- 
ticle was surmounted by the royal crown of Louis XVIII.' 
This was removed, and the American Eagle took its place. 
These chairs and sofas have more than once been "made 
over, good as new," but the original eagles remain, more 
brightly burnished than ever. May they gleam forever, 
and let no "modern furniture," with surface gilding and 
thin veneering, take the place of this historic furniture, 
in the Nation's house, fraught, as it is, with so many mem- 
ories of the illustrious dead. 



CHAPTER XXII. 
A CHAPTER OF GOSSIP. 

Quaint Habiliments — Portrait of a President's Wife — A Travelling Lady — 
Life in Russia — A Model American Minister — A Long and Lonely Jour- 
ney — When Napoleon Returned from Elba — The Court 'of St. James — 
" Mrs. Adams' Ball " — Mr. John Ogg's Little " Poem " — Verses which 
Our Fathers Endured — Peculiar Waists — Costume of an Ancient Belle — 
Fearful and Wonderful Attire of a Beau — " A Suit of Steel " — " Smiling 
for the Presidency" — Attending Two Balls the Same Evening — An As- 
cendant Star — A Man who Hid his Feelings — The Candidate at a Cattle 
Show — "She Often Combed Your Head" — "I Suppose She Combs 
Yours Now " — Giving " Tone " to the Whole Country — A Circle of 
"Rare" Women — A "Perpetual Honor to Womanhood" — Charles's 
Opinion of His Mother — How a Lady " Amused" Her Declining Days — 
Lafayette's Visit to Washington — His Farewell to America — " A Specie3 
of Irregular Diary" — " For the Benefit of My Grandfather" — Mrs. An- 
drew Jackson — A Woman's Influence — Politics and Piety Disagree — 
Why the General Didn't Join the Church— A Head " Full of Politics"— 
Swearing Some — The President Becomes a Good Boy — Domestic Ten- 

- dencies— His Greatest Loss— Sad News from the Hermitage. 

THE portrait which Leslie gives us of Louisa Catharine 
Johnson, the wife of John Quincy Adams, reminds 
us in outline and costume of the Empress Josephine and 
the Court of the first Napoleon. 

She wears the scanty robe of the period, its sparse out- 
line revealing the slender elegance of the figure, the low 
waist and short sleeves trimmed with lace and edged with 
pearls. One long glove is drawn nearly to the elbow, the 
other is held in the hand, which droops carelessly over the 
back of the chair. There is a necklace round the throat. 



SIX YEARS IN RUSSIA. 205 

From over one shoulder, and thrown over her lap, is 
a mantle of exquisite lace. The close bands of the hair, 
edged with a few deft curls, and fastened high at the back 
with a coronet comb, reveals the classic outline of the 
small head ; the face is oval, the features delicate and 
vivacious ; the eyes, looking far on, are beautiful in their 
clear, spiritual gaze. This is the portrait of a President's 
wife, whose early advantages of society and culture far 
transcended those of almost any other woman of her time. 

The daughter of Joshua Johnson, of Maryland, she was 
born, educated and married in London. As a bride she 
went to the coast of Berlin, to which her husband was 
appointed American Minister on the accession of his 
father to the Presidency. In 1801 she went to Boston, to 
dwell with her husband's people, but very soon came to 
Washington as the wife of a senator. On the accession 
of Madison, leaving her two elder children with their 
grandparents, she took a third, not two years of age, and 
embarked with her husband for Russia, whither he went 
as United States Minister. 

Nothing could be more graphic than the diary which 
she kept on this voyage. It consumed three months. 
Slimmer merged into winter before the little wave-and- 
wind-beaten bark touched that then inhospitable shore. 
The first American Minister to Russia, Mr. Adams lived 
in St. Petersburg for six years, " poor, studious, ambitious 
and secluded." Happily for him, his wife j)ossessed men- 
tal and spiritual resources, which lifted her above all de- 
pendence on surface or conventional attention from the 
world, and made her in every respect the meet companion 
of a scholar and patriot. 

In the wake of furious war, through storm and snow- 



206 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

drifts, through a country ravaged by passion and strife, 
she traveled alone, with her only child, from St. Petersburg 
to Paris, whither she went to meet her husband. Here 
she witnessed the storm of delight which greeted Napoleon 
on his return from Elba. Mr. Adams was appointed Minis- 
ter to the Court of St. James, and after a separation of six 
years Mrs. Adams was re-united to her children. 

In 1817 Mr. Monroe, on his accession to the Presidency, 
immediately appointed John Quincy Adams Secretary of 
State, when Mrs. Adams returned with him to Washington. 
For eight years she was the elegant successor of Mrs. 
Madison, who filled the same position with so much dis- 
tinction. No one was excluded from her house on account 
of political hostility — all sectional bitterness and party 
strife were banished from her drawing-rooms. 

As the wife of the Secretary of State, Mrs. Adams gave 
a famous ball, whose fame still lives in Washington. 
" Mrs. Adams's Ball " lives in history as well as in the 
memories of a few still living. It was given January 8th, 
1824, in commemoration of General Jackson's victory at 
New Orleans. It was announced in advance by the news- 
papers, and on the morning before its occurrence its splen- 
dor was anticipated and celebrated by the following lines 
written by Mr. John Ogg, who has passed into oblivion, 
although his early poems in his native England were said 
to have been taken for Byron's, and although he was 
one of the first of newspaper correspondents and the 
first short-hand reporter ever in Washington. 

The ladies referred to in the following lines were among 
the most celebrated beauties of their day, many of whose 
descendants still live in Washington. 



THE LABOES OF A VEESIFIEE. 207 

MRS. ADAMS'S BALL. 

[From the Washington Republican, Jan. 8th, 1824.] 

"Wend you with the world to-night ? 

Brown and fair, and wise and witty, 

Eyes that float in seas of light, 

Laughing mouths and dimples pretty, 

Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 

All are gone to Mrs. Adams's. 

There the mist of the future, the gloom of the past, 

All melt into light at the warm glance of pleasure ; 

And the only regret is, lest melting too fast, 

Mammas should move off in the midst of a measure. 

Wend you with the world to-night ? 

Sixty grey, and giddy twenty, 

Flirts that court, and prudes that slight, 

Stale coquettes and spinsters plenty. 

Mrs. Sullivan is there 

With all the charms that nature lent her ; 

Gay M'Kim, with city air, 

And charming Gales, and Vandeventer ; 

Forsyth, with her group of graces ; 

Both the Crowninshields in blue ; 

The Peirces, with their heavenly faces, ' 

And eyes like suns, that dazzle through ; 

Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 

All are gone to Mrs. Adams's. 

Wend you with the world to-night ? 
East and West, and South and North, 
Form a constellation bright, 
And pour a blended brilliance forth. 
See the tide of fashion flowing, 
'Tis the noon of beauty's reign ; 
Webster, Hamiltons are going, 
Eastern Lloyd and Southern Hayne ; 
Western Thomas, gaily smiling ; 
Borland, nature's protege ; 



208 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

Young De Wolfe, all hearts beguiling ; 
Morgan, Benton, Brown and Lee ; 
Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 
All are gone to Mrs. Adams's. 

Wend you with the world to-night ? 
Where blue eyes are brightly glancing, 
While to measures of delight 
Fairy feet are deftly dancing ; 
Where the young Euphrosyne 
Reigns, the sovereign of the scene, 
Chasing gloom and courting glee 
With the merry tambourine. 
Many a form of fairy birth, 
Many a Hebe yet unwen ; 
Wirt, a gem of purest worth, 
Lively, laughing Pleasanton, 
Vails and Taylor will be there ; 
Gay Monroe, so debonnaire, 
Helen, pleasure's harbinger, 
Ramsay, Cottringers, and Kerr ; 
Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 
All are gone to Mrs. Adams's. 

Wend you with the world to-night ? 
Juno in her court presides, 
Mirth and melody invite, 
Fashion points and pleasure guides ! 
Haste away then, seize the hour, 
Shun the thorn and pluck the flower. 
Youth, in all its spring-time blooming, 
Age, the guise of youth assuming, 
Wit, through all its circle gleaming, 
Glittering wealth, and beauty beaming ; 
Belles and matrons, maids and madams, 
All are gone to Mrs. Adams's. 

The picture of this celebrated entertainment is still 



THE GEXEEAl/s FLIETATION". 209 

extant, and shows the belles in the full dress of the period, 
when the dress waists ended just under the arms, and 
its depth, front and back, was not over three or four 
inches. The skirts, narrow and plain, were terminated 
by a flounce just resting on the floor. The gloves reached 
to the elbow, and were of such fine kid that they were 
often imported in the shell of an English walnut. Slip- 
pers and silk stockings of the color of the dress were 
worn, crossed and tied with gay ribbons over the instep. 
The hair was combed high, fastened with a tortoise-shell 
comb — the married ladies wearing ostrich feathers and 
turbans. While the belles were thus attired, their beaux 
were decked in blue coats, and gilt buttons, with white 
or buff waistcoats, white neck-ties and high " chokers," 
silk stockings and pumps. 

. In this picture Daniel "Webster, Clay and Calhoun are 
conspicuous in this dress. General Jackson, wearing 
bowed pumps, with Mrs. Adams on his arm, make the 
central figures of the assembly. Mrs. Adams wore " a 
suit of steel." The dress was composed of steel llama ; 
her ornaments for head, throat and arms, were all of cut 
steel, producing a dazzling effect. General Jackson's 
entire devotion to her, during the evening, was the sub- 
ject of comment. After the manner of to-day, it was de- 
clared that he was " smiling for the Presidency." He 
was the lion of the evening. All the houses of the first 
ward were illuminated in his honor. Bonfires made the 
streets light as day, and the " sovereign people " shouted 
his name and fame. The same evening, he attended a 
ball given by the famous dancing-master, Carusi, and fin- 
ished the festivities, celebrating his glory by the side of 

the reigning lady, the wife of the Secretary of State. 
14 



210 TEN YEAES IX WASHINGTON. 

That night fixed his presidential star in the ascendency. 
A few clays later the name of Calhcmn was withdrawn as the 
nominee of his party, and that of Jackson put in its place. 
The house, a double one, in which this famous ball was 
given, still stands unaltered, on F street, opposite the 
Ebbitt House. A portion of it was long occupied as lodg- 
ings by Hon. Charles Sumner. 

Through fiery opposition, John Quincy Adams was 
elected President. From the time she became mistress of 
the President's house, failing health inclined Mrs. Adams 
to seek seclusion, but she still continued to preside at 
public receptions. Her vivacity and pleasing manners 
did much to warm the chill caused by Mr. Adams' apathy 
or apparent coldness. Those who knew him, declared 
that he had the warmest heart and the deepest sympathies, 
but he had an unfortunate way of hiding them. Ii^is 
told that when he was candidate for the, Presidency, his 
friends persuaded him to go to a cattle show. Among 
the persons who ventured to address him, was a respecta- 
ble farmer who impulsively exclaimed : " Mr. Adams, I 
am very glad to see you. My wife, when she was a gal, 
lived in your father's family ; you were then a little boy, 
and she has often combed your head." 

" Well," said Mr. Adams, in a harsh voice, " I suppose 
she combs yours now ? " 

The poor farmer slunk back extinguished. If he gave 
John Quincy his vote, he was more magnanimous than 
the average citizen of to-day would be to so rude a can- 
didate. 

A writer of her time speaks of Mrs. Adams' " enchant- 
ing, elegant and intellectual regime" declaring that it 
should give tone to the whole country. Her fine culture, 



taking Solomon's advice. 211 

intellectual tastes, and charming social qualities, combined 
to attract about her a circle of rare and distinguished 
women. Among these were Mrs. Richard Rush, Mrs. Van 
Rensselaer, the wife of the Patroon, and Mrs. Edward Liv- 
ingston. Notwithstanding the opposition of her husband's 
politics, Mrs. Livingston was Mrs. Adams' most intimate 
friend • a lady whom any land might be proud to claim, 
and whose memory lives a perpetual honor to womanhood. 
Mrs. Adams' son, Charles Francis Adams, writing of his 
mother in 1839, says : 

" The attractions of great European capitals, and the dissipa- 
tions consequent upon high official stations at home, though 
continued through that part of her life when habits become the 
most fixed, have done nothing to change the natural elegance 

of her manners, nor the simplicity of her tastes To 

the world, Mrs. Adams presents a fine example of the possi- 
bility of retiring from the circles of fashion, and the external 
fascinations of life, in time still to retain a taste for the more 
quiet, though less showy attractions of the domestic hearth. 

A strong literary taste, which has caused her to read much, 
and a capacity for composition in prose and verse, have been 
resources for her leisure moments ; not with a view to that ex- 
hibition which renders such accomplishments too often fatal to 
the more delicate shades of feminine character, but for her own 
gratification, and that of a few relatives and friends. 

The late President Adams used to draw much amusement, in 
his latest years at Quincy, from the accurate delineation of 
Washington manners and character, which was regularly trans- 
mitted, for a considerable period, in letters from her pen. And 
if, as time advances, she becomes gradually less able to devote 
her sense of sight to reading and writing, her practice of the 
more homely virtues of manual industry, so highly commended 
in the final chapter of the book of Solomon, still amuses the de- 
clining days of her varied career." 



212 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

i 

Mrs. Adams was the " lady of the White House " when, 
in 1825, Lafayette visited the United States, and, at the 
invitation of the President, spent the last weeks of his 
stay at the " Executive Mansion," from which, on the 
seventh of September, he bade his pathetic farewell to the 
land of his adoption. 

Notwithstanding the rare qualities of mind and heart 
which she brought to it, and the popularity which she 
attained in it, her son writes : 

" Her residence in the President's house I have always con- 
sidered as the period she enjoyed the least during the public 
career of my father. All this appears more or less in her letters, 
and especially in a species of irregular diary which she kept for 
some time at Washington, for the benefit of my grandfather, 
John Adams, then living at Quincy, and of her brother, who 
was residing in New Orleans." 

Mrs. Adams died May 14, 1852, and was buried beside 
her husband, in the family burying ground at Quincy, 

Massachusetts. 

In mental attainments, there was an absolute contrast 
between Mrs. Adams and Rachel Donaldson, the next 
President's wife. 

Mrs. Andrew Jackson never entered the President's 
house in visible form, for she had passed from earth be- 
fore her husband became the Chief Magistrate of the 
Nation. Yet it is doubtful if the wife of any other Pres- 
ident ever exerted so powerful and positive an influence 
over an administration in life as did she in death. 

Born and reared on the frontiers of civilization, her 
educational advantages had been most scanty, and she 



A woman's influence. 213 

never mastered more than the simplest rudiments of knowl- 
edge. Yet, looking on her pictured face, it is easy to 
fathom and define the power which, through life and be- 
yond the grave, held the master will of the husband who 
loved her in sweet abeyance. It was a power purely 
womanly — the affectional force of a woman of exalted 
moral nature and deep affections. It was impossible that 
such a woman should use arts to win love, and equally 
impossible that she should not be loved. Men would love 
her instinctively, through the best and highest in their 
natures. 

With the wound of her loss fresh and bleeding, Presi- 
dent Jackson entered upon his high office. Thus in death 
Rachel Jackson became the tutelary saint of the Presi- 
dent's house. Wherever he went, he wore her miniature. 
No matter what had been the duties or pleasures of the 
day, when the man came back to himself, and to his lonely 
room, her Bible and her picture took the place of the 
beloved face and tender presence which had been the one 
charm and love of his heroic life. 

No other President's wife looks down upon posterity 
with so winsome and innocent a gaze as Rachel Jackson. 
A cap of soft lace surmounts the dark curls which cluster 
about her forehead, falling veil-like over her shoulders. 
The full lace ruffle around her neck is not fastened with 
even a brooch, and, save the long pendants in her ears, 
she wears no ornaments. Her throat is massive, her lips 
full and sweet in expression, her brow broad and rounded, 
her eye-brows arching above a pair of large, liquid, gazelle- 
like eyes, whose soft, feminine outlook is sure to win and 
to disarm the beholder. This remarkable loveliness of 
spirit and person was the source of fatal sorrow to Rachel 



214 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

Jackson. It won her reverence, amounting almost to 
adoration, but it made her also the victim of jealousy, 
envy and malice. These made the shadow always flung 
athwart the sunshine of love which made her life. 

She was a woman of deep personal piety, and longed 
for nothing so much as the time when her husband would 
be done with political honors, as he had assured her that 
then, and not till then, could he " be a Christian." The 
following anecdote, told by the late Judge Bryan of Wash- 
ington, illustrates the piety of her character and the pro- 
found personal influence she held over the moral nature of 
her husband : 

The father of Judge Bryan, an intimate friend of Mrs. 
Jackson, was on a visit to the Hermitage. Mrs. Jackson 
talked to him of religion, gave him a hymn to read that 
was sung at a late funeral, and said the General was dis- 
posed to be religious, and she believed would join the 
church but for the coming presidential election ; that his 
head was now full of politics. While they were convers- 
ing, the General came in with a newspaper in his hand, to 
which he referred as denouncing his mother as a camp fol- 
lower. " This is too bad ! " he exclaimed, rising into a 
passipn and swearing terribly as our " army in Flanders." 
When nearly out of breath, his wife approached him and, 
looking him in his face, simply said : Mr. Jackson. He 
was subdued in an instant, and did not utter another oath. 
• In the same presidential contest this gentle being did 
not herself escape calumny. When her husband was 
elected President of the United States, she said: "For 
Mr. Jackson's sake, I am glad ; for my own, I never 
wished it." To an intimate friend she said in all sincerity : 
" I assure you I would rather be a door-keeper in the house 



LISTENING TO A TERRIBLE TALE. 215 

of my God than to dwell in that palace in Washington." 
Dearer to her heart was the Hermitage, with the little 
chapel built by her husband for her own especial use, than 
all the prospective pomp of the President's house. 

She was a mother to every servant on the estate, and 
anxious to make every one comfortable during her ab- 
sence in Washington. She made numerous journeys to 
Nashville, to purchase, for all left behind, their winter sup- 
plies. Worn out, after a day's shopping, she went to the 
parlor of the Nashville Inn to rest. While she waited 
there for the family coach which was to convey her back 
to the Hermitage, she heard her own name spoken in the 
adjoining room. She was compelled to hear, while she sat 
there, pale and smitten, the false and cruel calumnies 
against herself which had so recklessly been used during 
the campaign to defeat her husband, and which he had 
zealously excluded from her sight in the newspapers. 
Here the arrow came back from the misfortune of her 
youth, when she married a man intellectually and morally 
her inferior, from whom she was afterwards divorced, and 
it entered her gentle heart too deep to be withdrawn. 
She was seized almost immediately with spasmodic disease 
of the heart. Everything possible was done for her re- 
lief without avail. A few nights afterwards she exclaimed : 
" I am fainting," was lifted to her bed, and in a few mo- 
ments had breathed her last sigh. 

The grief of her husband amounted to agony. It 
seemed for a time that his frame must break under such 
grief, but he lived to worship and serve her memory for 
many years. December 23, 1828, a great ball and ban- 
quet was to have been given in Nashville, in honor of 
General Jackson's victory at New Orleans. The whole 



216 TEN YEAES IN" WASHINGTON. 

city was gay with preparations, when the word came from 
the Hermitage : " The President's wife is dead !," 

From that hour her husband seemed to live to avenge 
her wrongs and to honor her memory. Probably into no 
other administration of the government, from its first to 
the present, has personal feeling had so much to do with 
official appointments as in the offices emptied and filled 
by Andrew Jackson. It had only to enter his suspicion 
that a man had failed to espouse the cause of the beloved 
Rachel, and his unlucky official head immediately came 
off. It was told him that Mr. Watterson, the Librarian 
of Congress, had told, or listened to something to the 
detriment of Mrs. Jackson, and Mr. Watterson was imme- 
diately deposed. Thus she was avenged at times, probably 
in acts of personal injustice, but in her own pure tones 
she spoke through him in all the higher acts of his ad- 
ministration. Thus it was in spirit that Rachel Jackson 
lived and reigned at the White House. 

The " lovely Emily " Donelson, wife of Andrew Jack- 
son Donelson, Mrs. Jackson's nephew and adopted son, 
with Mrs. Andrew Jackson, Jr., the wife of another 
adopted son, shared together the social honors of the 
White House during the administration of President 
Jackson. The delicate question of precedence between 
them was thus settled by him. He said to Mrs. Jackson : 
" You, my dear, are mistress of the Hermitage, and Emily 
is hostess of the White House." 

This Emily was of remarkable beauty, strongly resem- 
bling Mary, Queen of Scots. Her manners were of sin- 
gular fascination, and she dressed with exquisite taste. 
The dress she wore at the first inauguration is still pre- 
served. It is an amber-colored satin, brocaded with bou- 



SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE. 217 

quets of rose-leaves and violets, trimmed with white lace 
and pearls. It was a present from General Jackson, and 
even at that day, before Jenkins' supposed birth, it was 
described in every paper of the Union. General Jackson 
always called her "my daughter." She was the child of 
Mrs. Jackson's brother, and married to her cousin. She 
was quick at repartee, and possessed the rare gift of being 
able to listen gracefully. A foreign minister once said: 
" Madame, you dance with the grace of a Parisian. I can 
hardly realize that you were educated in Tennessee." 

"Count, you forget," was the spirited reply, "that grace 
is a cosmopolite, and, like a wild flower, is found oftener in 
the woods than in the streets of a city." 

Her four children were all born in the White House. 
But in the midst of its honors, in the flower of her youth, 
"the lovely Emily" went out from its portals to die. She 
sought the softer airs of "Tulip Grove," her home in 
Tennessee, where she died of consumption, December, 
1836. A lady gives the following picture of an evening 
scene at the White House, in the early part of Jackson's 
administration : 

" The large parlor was scantily furnished ; there was light 
from the chandelier, and a blazing fire in the grate ; four or five 
ladies sewing around it ; Mrs. Donelson, Mrs. Andrew Jackson, 
Jr , Mrs. Edward Livingston. Five or six children were play- 
ing about, regardless of documents or work-baskets. At the 
farther end of the room sat the President, in his arm-chair, wear- 
ing a long loose coat, and smoking a long reed pipe, with bowl 
of red clay — combining the dignity of the patriarch, monarch, 
and Indian chief. Just behind, was Edward Livingston, the 
Secretary of State, reading a dispatch from the French Minister 
for Foreign Affairs. The ladies glance admiringly, now and 
then, at the President, who listens, waving his pipe toward the 
children, when they become too boisterous." 



CHAPTER XXIH. 

SCENES AT THE WHITE HOUSE— MEN AND WOMEN OF 

NOTE. 

Widows " at par " — Four Soilless Presidents — Supported by Flattery — A 
Delicate Constitution — Living to a Respectable Age — Teaching Her 
Grandsons How to Fight — Inheriting Religion — " Another Sensitive, 
Saintly Soul " — A Pathetic Reminiscence — A Perfect Gentlewoman — A 
Stately Black -eyed Matron — A Lady of the Old School — Obeying St. 
Paul — A Woman Who " Kept Silence " — " Sarah Knows Where It Is " — 
Commanding " Superlative Respect " — An English Lady " Impressed " 
— Three Queens in the Background — A Very Handsome Woman — Retir- 
ing from Active Life — A Lady's Heroism — "My Home, the Battle-field " 
— A Man Who Kept to His Post — A Life in the Savage Wilderness — A 
Life's Devotion — The Colonel's Brave Wife — The Conquering Hero from 
Mexico — Objecting to the Presidency — "Betty Bliss" — The Reigning 
Lady — An Overpowering Reception — " A Bright and Beaming Creature, 
Dressed Simply in White " — An Inclination for Retirement — The Pen- 
alty of Greatness — Death in the White House — A Wife's Prayers — 
A New Regime — The Clothier's Apprentice and the School Teacher — The 
Future President Builds His Own House — Becomes a Lawyer — Chosen 
Representative — Domestic Happiness — Twenty-seven Years of Married 
Life — " A Matron of Commanding Person " — A Scarcity of Books — 
Home " Comforts " at the White House — The Memory of a Loving Wife — 
A Well Balanced Young Lady. 

THREE of the first four Presidents of the United States 
married widows. Jefferson, Jackson, Martin Van 
Buren, and Tyler, were all widowers while occupying the 
White House. Neither Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
or Monroe, left sons to succeed them. The wife of Mar- 
tin Van Buren died in her youth, long before he had grown 
to high political honors. She had been dead seventeen 



a lady's hekoism. 219 

years when, as the eighth President of the United States, 
he entered the White House. During his administration, 
its social honors were dispensed by his daughter-in-law, 
Mrs. Abram Van Buren, born Angelica Singleton, of South 
Carolina, who entered upon her duties and pleasures as a 
bride. She was of illustrious lineage, possessed finely 
cultivated powers, and " is said to have borne the fatigue 
of a three hours' levee with a patience and pleasantry 
inexhaustible." Doubtless she shared some of the help 
which bore Mr. Monroe triumphantly through a similar 
scene. 

"Are you not completely worn out?" inquired a friend. 

"0, no," replied the President. "A little flattery will 
support a man through great fatigue." 

Anna Symnes, the wife of President Harrison, a lady 
of strong intelligence and deep piety, never came to the 
White House. Her delicate health forbade it, when her 
husband made his presidential journey to Washington. 
In a little more than a month he was borne back to her, 
redeemed by death. She survived, almost to the age of 
ninety, to bid sons and grandsons Godspeed when they 
went forth to fight for their country — as she had bidden 
her gallant husband the same, when he left her amid 
her flock of little ones, in the days of her youth, for the 
same cause. From time to time sons and grandsons came 
from the field of battle to receive her blessing anew. She 
said to one: "Go, my son. Your country needs your 
services. I do not. I feel that my prayers in your be- 
half will be heard, and that you will return in safety." 
And the grandson did come back to receive her final bless- 
ing, after many hard-fought battles. Her only surviving 



220 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

son writes: "That I am a firm believer in the religion of 
Christ, is not a virtue of mine. I imbibed it at my moth- 
er's breast, and can no more divest myself of it, than of 
my nature." 

Mrs. Letitia Christian Tyler, wife of the tenth Presi- 
dent of the United States, was another sensitive, saintly 
soul, whose children xise up to-day, and call her blessed. 
She died in the White House, September 10, 1842. Her 
daughter-in-law, Mrs. Robert Tvler, writing of the event, 
says: 

" Nothing can exceed the loneliness of this large and gloomy 
mansion, hung with black, its walls echoing only sighs and groans. 
My poor husband suffered dreadfully when he was told his 
mother's eyes were constantly turned to the door, watching for 
him. He had left Washington to bring me and the children, 
at her request. She had every thing about her to awaken love. 
She was beautiful to the eye, even in her illness ; her com- 
plexion was clear as an infant's, her figure perfect, and her 
hands and feet were the most delicate I ever saw. She was 
refined and gentle in every thing that she said and did ; and, 
above all, a pure and spotless Christian. She was my beau ideal 
of a perfect gentlewoman. 

" The devotion of father and sons to her was most affecting. 
I don't think I ever saw her enter a room that all three did not 
spring up to lead her to a chair, to arrange her footstool, and 
caress and pet her." 

Mrs. Robert Tyler presided at the White House till June, 
1844, when President Tyler was married to Julia Gardiner, 
of Gardiner's Island, New York, a youthful beauty and 
belle. After many vicissitudes Mrs. Tyler entered the 
Catholic church, and now resides in Georgetown. Like 



"SAKAH KNOWS WHEEE IT IS." 221 

Mrs. Madison, she has returned to the scenes of her early 
triumphs, and during the sessions of Congress may often 
be seen in the diplomatic gallery of the senate chamber, 
a stately black-eyed matron dressed in deep mourning. 

Mrs. Polk, intellectually, was one of the most marked 
women who ever presided in the White House. A lady 
of the old school, educated in a strict Moravian Insti- 
tute, her attainments were more than ordinary, her un- 
derstanding stronger than that of average women; but 
she obeyed St. Paul, and held her gifts in silence. She 
never astonished or offended her visitors by revealing to 
them the depth or breadth of her intelligence ; nevertheless 
she used that intelligence as a power — the power behind 
the throne. Never a politician, in a day when politics, by 
precedent and custom, were forbidden grounds to women, 
she no less was thoroughly conversant with all public 
affairs, and made it a part of her duty to inform herself 
thoroughly on all subjects which concerned her country, 
or her husband. 

She was her husband's private secretary, and, probably, 
was the only lady of the White House who ever filled that 
office. She took charge of his papers, he trusting entirely 
to her memory and method for their safe keeping. If he 
wanted a document, long before labeled and "pigeon- 
holed," he said : " Sarah knows where it is ; " and it was 
" Sarah's " ever ready hand that laid it before his eyes. 
At the age of twenty she came to Washington as the wife 
of Mr. Polk, then a Member of Congress from Tennessee. 
Many years of her youth and prime were spent at the 
Capital, and, as she had no children, she had more than 
ordinary opportunity to devote herself exclusively to the 
service of her husband. She was the wife of the Speaker 



222 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

of the House before she was the wife of the President of 
the United States, and in every position seems to have 
commanded superlative respect and admiration on her 
own behalf, aside from the honor always paid to the per- 
son holding high station. Many poems in the public 
prints were addressed to her — one, while she was the wife 
of a Member of Congress, by Judge Story. When her 
husband became the President, Mrs. Polk was deemed the 
supreme ornament of the White House, and the public 
journals of the land broke forth into gratulation that the 
domestic life of the Nation's house was to be represented 
by one who honored American womanhood. Mrs. Polk 
was tall, slender, and stately, with much dignity of bear- 
ing, and a manner said to resemble that of Mrs. Madison. 
The stateliness of her presence was conspicuous, and so 
impressed an English lady, that she declared that "not 
one of the three queens whom she had seen, could com- 
pare with the truly feminine, yet distinguished presence 
of Mrs. Polk." 

Mrs. Polk was considered a very handsome woman. 
Her hair and eyes were very black, and she had the com- 
plexion of a Spanish donna. Without being technically 
"literary," she was fond of study, and of intellectual pur- 
suits, and possessed a decided talent for conversation. In 
her youth, she became a member of the Presbyterian 
church, and through a long life her character has been 
eminently a Christian one. Always devout, her piety in 
later years is said to have merged into intensity; but even 
in the prime of her beauty and power, she never gave 
her smile or presence to the dissipation, the insidiously 
corrupting influence to what is termed " gay life in Wash- 
ington," whose baleful exponent to-day is the all-night 



a wife's devotion. 223 

" German" so destructive to freshness of beauty and purity 
of soul. 

Mrs. Polk still lives at "Polk Place," Nashville, Tennes- 
see, a stately and noble home, like the Hermitage in this 
respect, that the mortal remains of its master, amid ver- 
dure and flowers, beneath the shadow of its trees, await 
the final call. The inscription on the monument, to the 
memory of President Polk, is in Mrs. Polk's own words ; 
and here, in this home, consecrated by his death, the ven- 
erable widow of the eleventh President of the United 
States peacefully awaits the summons which will recall 
her to the soul whose life and name it has been her chief 
earthly glory to embellish and to represent. 

Mrs. Taylor, the wife of General Taylor, the twelfth 
President of the United States, was one of those unknown 
heroines of whom fame keeps no record. Her life, in its 
self-abnegation and wifely devotion, under every stress of 
privation and danger on the Indian's trail, amid fever- 
breeding swamps, and on the edge of the battle-field, was 
more heroic than that ever dreamed of by Martha Wash- 
ington — or continuously lived by any Presidential lady of 
the Revolution — yet time will never give her a chronicler. 

When General Taylor received the official announce- 
ment that he was elected President of the United States, 
among other things he said: "For more than a quarter 
of a century my house has been the tent, and my home 
the battle-field." This utterance was simply true, and 
through all these years, this precarious house and home 
were shared by his devoted wife. He was one of the 
hardest worked of fighting officers. Intervals of official 
repose at West Point and Washington never came to this 



224 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

young "Indian fighter." His life was literally spent in 
the savage wilderness, but whether in the swamps of Flor- 
ida, on the plains of Mexico, or on the desolate border of 
the frontier, the young wife persistently followed, loved 
and served him. Thus all her children were born, and 
kept with her till old enough to live without her care; 
then, for their own sakes, she gave them up, and sent 
them back to "the settlements," for the education indis- 
pensable to their future lives — but, whatever the cost, she 
stayed with her husband. 

The devotion to duty, and the cheerfulness under pri- 
vation of this tender woman, — the wife of their chief, — 
penetrated the whole of his pioneer army. It made every 
man more contented and uncomplaining, when he thought 
of her. Her entire married life had been spent thus; but 
when her husband, as Colonel Taylor, took command 
against the treacherous Seminoles, in the Florida war, 
when the newspapers heralded the new-made discovery, 
that the wife of Colonel Taylor had established herself 
at Tampa Bay, it was considered unpardonably reckless, 
that she should thus risk her life, when the odds of suc- 
cess seemed all against her husband. Nothing could move 
her from her post. As ever, she superintended the cook- 
ing of his food ; she ministered to the sick and wounded ; 
she upheld the morale of the little army by the steadfast- 
ness of her own self-possession and hope, through all the 
long and terrible struggle. Time passed, and the brave 
Colonel of the Border became the conquering hero from 
Mexico, bearing triumphantly back to peace the victories 
of Palo Alto, Monterey, and Buena Vista, inscribed upon 
his banners. The obscure "Indian fighter" was at once 
the hero and idol of the Nation. The long day of battle 



BETTY BLISS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 225 

and glory was ended at last, the wife thought, — and now 
she, the General, their children, in a four-roomed home, 
were to be kept together at last, in peace unbroken. 

It is not difficult to imagine what a home so hardly 
earned, so nobly won, was to such a woman. Nor is it 
hard to realize that when that home was almost immedi- 
ately invaded by a nomination of its chief to the Pres- 
idency of the Nation, the woman's heart at last rebelled. 
The wife thought no new honor could add to the lustre 
of her husband's renown. She declared that the life- 
long habits of her husband would make him miserable 
under the restraints of metropolitan life, and the duties of 
a civil position. From the first, she deplored the nomina- 
tion of General Taylor to the Presidency as a misfortune, 
and sorrowfully said : " It is a plot to deprive me of his 
society, and to shorten his life by unnecessary care and 
responsibility." 

When, at last, she came to the White House, as its mis- 
tress, she eschewed the great reception-rooms and received 
her visitors in private apartments. She tried, as far as 
possible, to establish her daily life on the routine of the 
small cottage at Baton Rouge, and she essayed personally 
to minister to her husband's comforts, as of old, till her 
simple habits were ridiculed and made a cause of reproach 
by the " opposition." 

The reigning lady of the White House, at this time, 
was General and Mrs. Taylor's youngest daughter, Eliza- 
beth, or, as she was familiarly and admiringly called, 
"Betty Bliss." She entered the White House at the age 
of twenty- two, a bride, having married Major Bliss, who 
served faithfully under her father as Adjutant-general. 
Perhaps no other President was ever inaugurated with 



226 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

such overwhelming enthusiasm as General Taylor — and 
the reception given his youngest child, who greatly re- 
sembled him, and who, at that time, was the youngest 
lady who had ever presided at the White House, was 
almost as overpowering. The vision that remains of 
her loveliness, shows us a bright and beaming creature, 
dressed simply in white, with flowers in her hair. She 
possessed beauty, good sense and quiet humor. As a 
hostess she was at ease, and received with affable grace ; 
but an indication for retirement marked her as well as 
her mother. Formal receptions and official dinners were 
not to their taste. Nevertheless, these are a part of the 
inevitable penalty j>aid by all who have received the 
Nation's highest honor. Society, in its way, exacts as 
much of the ladies of the White House, as party politics 
do of the men who administer state affairs in it. A lack of 
entertainment caused part of the universal discontent, 
already voiced against the hero President, whose heroic 
ways were busy, and naturally the ways of policy or 
diplomacy. 

The second winter of President Taylor's term, the ladies 
of his family seemed to have assumed more prominently 
and publicly the social duties of their high position. A 
reception at the President's house, March 4, 1850, was of 
remarkable brilliancy. Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Benton 
and Cass, with many beautiful and cultured women, then 
added their splendor to society in Washington. The 
auguries of a brilliant year were not fulfilled. Amid the 
anguish of his family, President Taylor died at the White 
House, July 9, 1850. When it was known that he must 
die, Mrs. Taylor became insensible, and the agonized cries 
of his family reached the surrounding streets. 



THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. 227 

Dreadful to the eyes of the bereaved wife were the 
pomp and show with which her hero was buried. 

After he became President, General Taylor said, that 
" his wife had prayed every night for months that Henry 
Clay might be elected President in his place." She sur- 
vived her husband two years, and to her last hour never 
mentioned the White House in Washington, except in its 
relation to the death of her husband. 

She was succeeded by a woman of superior intellect, 
who in a different sphere had proved herself an equally 
devoted wife. Mrs. Abigail Filmore, the daughter of a 
Baptist clergyman, grew up in Western New York, when 
it was a frontier and a wilderness. Yearning for intellect- 
ual culture, with all the drawbacks of poverty and scanty 
opportunity, she obtained sufficient knowledge to become 
a school-teacher. It was while following this avocation 
that she first met her future husband, the thirteenth 
President of the United States, then a clothier's appren- 
tice, a youth of less than twenty years, himself, during 
the winter months, a teacher of the village school. They 
were married in 1826, and began life in a small house 
built by her husband's hands. In this little house the wife 
added to her duties of maid-of-all-work, house-keeper, 
hostess and wife, the avocation of teacher. She bore full 
half of the burden of life, and the husband, with the 
weight of care lifted from him by willing and loving 
hands, rose rapidly in the profession of law, and in less 
than two years was chosen a member of the State Legis- 
lature. Thus, side by side, they worked and struggled 
from poverty to eminence. 

Strong in intellect and will, her delights were all femi- 
nine. Her tasks accomplished, she lived in books and 



228 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

music, flowers and children. At her death, her husband 
said : " For twenty-seven years, my entire married life, I 
was always greeted with a happy smile." She entered the 
"White House a matron of commanding person and beau- 
tiful countenance. She was five feet six inches in height, 
with a complexion extremely fair and pure, blue, smiling 
eyes, and a wealth of light-brown curling hair. A per- 
sonal friend of Mrs. Filmore, writing from Buffalo, says : 

" When Mr. Filmore entered the White House, he found it 
entirely destitute of books. Mrs. Filmore was in the habit of 
spending her leisure moments in reading, I might almost say, in 
studying. She was accustomed to be surrounded with books of 
reference, maps, and all the other requirements of a well fur- 
nished library, and she found it difficult to content herself in a 
house devoid of such attractions. To meet this want, Mr. Fil- 
more asked of Congress, and received an appropriation, and se-. 
lected a library, devoting to that purpose a large and pleasant 
room in the second story of the White House. Here Mrs. Fil- 
more surrounded herself with her little home comforts ; here 
her daughter had her own piano, harp, and guitar, and here Mrs. 
Filmore received the informal visits of the friends she loved, 
and, for her, the real pleasure and enjoyments of the White 
House were in this room." 

Mrs. Filmore was proud of her husband's success in 
life, and desirous that no reasonable expectation of the 
public should be disappointed. She never absented her- 
self from the public receptions, dinners, or levees, when it 
was possible to be present; but her delicate health fre- 
quently rendered them very painful. She sometimes kept 
her bed all day, to favor that weak ankle, that she might 
be able to endure the fatigue of the two hours she would 
be obliged to stand for the Friday evening levees. 



A DAUGHTEK OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 229 

Mrs. Filmore was destined never to see again her old 
home in Buffalo, with mortal eyes. She contracted a cold 
on the day of Mr. Pierce's inauguration, which resulted 
in pneumonia, of which she died, at Willard's Hotel, Wash- 
ington, 1853. What she is in the memory of her husband, 
may be judged by the fact — that he has carefully pre- 
served every line that she ever wrote him, and has been 
heard to say that he could never destroy even the little 
notes that she sent him on business, to his office. 

The child of this truly wedded pair, Mary Abigail Fil- 
more, was the rarest and most exquisite President's daugh- 
ter that ever shed sunshine in the White House. She 
survived her mother but a year, dying of cholera, at the 
age of twenty- two, yet her memory is a benison to all 
young American women, especially to those surrounded 
by the allurements of society and high station. She was 
not only the mistress of many accomplishments, but pos- 
sessed a thoroughly practical education. She was taught 
at home, at Mrs. Sedgwick's school, in Lenox, Massachu- 
setts, and was graduated from the State Normal School of 
New York, as a teacher, and taught in the higher depart- 
ments of one of the public schools in Buffalo. She was 
a French, German, and Spanish scholar; was a proficient 
in music; and an amateur sculptor. She was the rarest 
type of woman, in whom was blended, in perfect propor- 
tion, masculine judgment and feminine tenderness. In 
her were combined intellectual force, vivacity of temper- 
ament, genuine sensibility, and deep tenderness of heart. 
She saw clearly through the forms and shows of life, her 
views of its duties were grave and serious; yet, in her 
intercourse with others, she overflowed with bright wit, 
humor and kindliness. Her character was revealed in her 



230 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

face, for her soul shone through it. Words cannot tell 
what such a nature and such an intelligence would be, 
presiding over the social life of the Nation's House. She 
used her opportunities, as the President's daughter, to 
minister to others. She clung to all her old friends, with- 
out any regard to their position in life ; her time and tal- 
ents were devoted to their happiness. She was constantly 
thinking of some little surprise, some gift, some journey, 
some pleasure, by which she could contribute to the hap- 
piness of others. After the death of her mother, she 
went to the desolate home of her father and brother, and, 
emulating the example of that mother, relieved her father 
of all household care ; her domestic and social qualities 
equalled her intellectual power. She gathered all her 
early friends about her ; she consecrated herself to the 
happiness of her father and brother ; she filled her home 
with sunshine. With scarcely an hour's warning, the 
final summons came. "Blessing she was, God made her 
so," and in her passed away one of the rarest of young 
American women. 



CHAPTER XXIY. 

THE WHITE HOUSE DURING THE WAR. 

Under a Cloud — "A Woman Among a Thousand " — Revival of By-gone 
Days — Another Lady of the White House — A " Golden Blonde " 
— Instinct Alike with Power and Grace — A Fun-Loving Romp — 
Harriet with her Wheelbarrow of Wood — A Deed of Kindness — 
The Wheel Turns Round — An Impression Made on Queen Victoria 
— In Paris and on the Continent — An American Lady at Oxford — 
Gay Doings at the Capital — Rival Claims for a Lady's Hand — Reign- 
ing at the White House — Doing Double Duty — Visit of the Prince of 
Wales — Marriage of Harriet Lane — As Wife and Mother — Mrs. Abraham 
Lincoln — Standing Alone — A Time of Trouble and Perplexity — Concilia- 
tory Counsels Needful — Rumors of War — the Life of the Nation Threat- 
ened — Whispers of Treason — Awaiting the Event — Peculiar Position of 
Mary Lincoln — A Life-long Ambition Fulfilled — The Nation Called to 
Arms — Contagious Enthusiasm — What the President's Wife Did — Noth- 
ing to do but " Shop " — Sensational Stories Afloat — Stirring Times at 
the Capital — What Came from the River — The Dying and the Dead — 
Churches and Houses Turned into Hospitals — Arrival of Troops — " Mrs. 
Lincoln Shopped " — The Lonely Man at the White House — Letters of 
Rebuke — An Example of Selfishness — Petty Economies — The Back Door 
of the White House — An Injured Individual — Death of Willie Lincoln — 
Injustice which Mrs. Lincoln Suffered — The Rabble in the White House 
— Valuables Carried Away — Big Boxes and Much Goods — Going West — 
Mrs. Lincoln Disconsolate — False and Cruel Accusations — Considerable 
Personal Property — Missing Treasures — Mrs. Lincoln as a Woman — 
Tears and Mimicry— The Faults of a President's Wife. 

MRS. FRANKLIN PIERCE entered the White House 
under the shadow of ill-health and sore bereave- 
ment, having seen her last surviving child killed before 
her eyes on a railroad train, after the election of her 
husband to the Presidency of the United States. 



232 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Mrs. Pierce was remarkable for fragility of constitution, 
exquisite sensitiveness of organism, and deep spirituality 
of nature. She instinctively shrank from observation, 
and nothing could be more painful to her in average life 
than the public gaze. She found her joy in the quiet 
sphere of domestic life, and herein, through her wise 
counsels, pure tastes, and devoted life, she exerted a 
powerful influence. One who knew her writes : 

" Mrs. Pierce's life, as far as she could make it so, was one of 
retirement. She rarely participated in gay amusements, and 
never enjoyed what is called fashionable society. Her natural 
endowments were of a high order. She inherited a judgment 
singularly clear, and a taste almost unerring. The cast of her 
beauty was so dream-like ; her temper was so little mingled 
with the common characteristics of woman ; it had so little of 
caprice, so little of vanity, so utter an absence of all jealousy 
and all anger ; it was so made up of tenderness and devotion, 
and yet so imaginative and fairy-like in its fondness, that it was 
difficult to bear only the sentiments of earth for one who had so 
little of life's clay." 

It was but natural that such a being should be the life- 
long object of a husband's adoring devotion. Nor is it 
strange that the husband of such a wife, reflecting in his 
outer life the urbanity, gentleness, and courtesy which 
marked his home intercourse, in addition to his own per- 
sonal gifts, should have been, what Franklin Pierce was 
declared to be, the most popular man, personally, who 
ever was President of the United States. Notwithstand- 
ing her ill health, her shrinking temperament, and per- 
sonal bereavement, Mrs. Pierce forced herself to meet the 
public demands of her exalted station, and punctually 
presided at receptions and state dinners, at any cost to 



THE GLORY OF A GOLDEN BLONDE. 233 

herself. No woman, by inherent nature, could have been 
less adapted to the full blaze of official life than she, yet she 
met its demands with honor, and departed from the White 
House revered by all who had ever caught a glimpse of 
her exquisite nature. She died December, 1863, in Ando- 
ver, Massachusetts, and now rests, with her husband and 
children, in the cemetery at Concord, New Hampshire. 

During the administration of Mr. Buchanan, the White 
House seemed to revive the social magnificence of old 
days. Harriet Lane brought again into its drawing- 
rooms the splendor of courts, and more than repeated 
the elegance and brilliancy of fashion, which marked the 
administration of Mr. John Quincy Adams. 

Harriet Lane, the adopted daughter of James Bu- 
chanan, and " lady of the White House " during his ad- 
ministration, was one of those golden blondes which 
Oliver Wendell Holmes so delights to portray. " Her 
head and features were cast in noble mould, and her form 
which, at rest, had something of the massive majesty of 
a marble pillar, in motion was instinct alike with power 
and grace." Grace, light and majesty seemed to make 
her atmosphere. Every motion was instinct with life, 
health and intelligence. Her superb physique gave the 
impression of intense, harmonious vitality. Her eyes, of 
deep violet, shed a constant, steady light, yet they could 
flash with rebuke, kindle with humor, or soften in tender- 
ness. Her mouth was her most peculiarly beautiful fea- 
ture, capable of expressing infinite humor or absolute 
sweetness, while her classic head was crowned with masses 
of golden hair, always worn with perfect simplicity. 

As a child she was a fun-loving, warm-hearted romp. 



234 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

When eleven years of age she was tall as a woman, never- 
theless Mr. Buchanan, one day looking from his window, 
saw Harriet with flushed cheek and hat awry, trundling 
through the leading street of Lancaster a wheelbarrow, 
full of wood. He rushed out to learn the cause of such 
an unseemly sight, when she answered in confusion, 
" that she was on her way to old black Aunt Tabitha with 
a load of wood, because it was so cold." A few years later 
this young domestic outlaw, having been graduated with 
high honor from the Georgetown convent, was shining at 
the Court of St. James, at which her uncle was American 
Minister. Queen Victoria, upon whom her surpassing 
brightness and loveliness seemed to make a deep impres- 
sion, decided that she should rank not as niece or 
daughter, but as the wife of the United States Minister. 
Thus the youthful American girl became one of the 
" leading ladies " of the diplomatic corps of St. James. 

On the continent and in Paris she was everywhere 
greeted as a girl-queen, and in England her popularity 
was immense. On the day when Mr. Buchanan and Mr. 
Tennyson received the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws at 
the University of Oxford, her appearance was greeted by 
loud cheers from the students, who arose en masse to re- 
ceive her. From this dazzling career abroad, she came 
back to her native land, to preside over the President's 
House. She became the supreme lady of the gayest ad- 
ministration which has marked the government of the 
United States. Societies, ships of war, neck-ties were 
named after her. Men, gifted and great, from foreign lands 
and in her own, sought her hand in marriage. Such cu- 
mulated pleasures and honors probably were never heaped 
upon any other one young woman of the United States. 



THE PKINCE OF WALES AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 235 

At White House receptions, and on all state occasions, 
the sight of this golden beauty, standing beside the grand 
and gray old man, made a unique and delightful contrast, 
which thousands flocked to see. Her duties were more 
onerous than had fallen to the share of any lady of the 
White House for many years ; the long diplomatic ser- 
vice of Mr. Buchanan abroad involving him in many obli- 
gations to entertain distinguished strangers privately, aside 
from his hospitalities as President of the United States. 
During his administration the Prince of Wales was enter- 
tained at the White House, who presented his portrait to 
Mr. Buchanan and a set of valuable engravings to Miss 
Lane, as "a slight mark of his grateful recollection of the 
hospitable reception and agreeable visit at the White 
House." 

During the last troubled months of Mr. Buchanan's ad- 
ministration, he always spoke with warmth and gratitude 
of Miss Lane's patriotism and good sense. Neither he nor 
her country ever suffered from any conversational lapse 
of hers, which, in a day so rife with passion and injustice, 
is saying much. In 1863, Miss Lane was confirmed in the 
Episcopal church at Oxford, Philadelphia, of which her 
uncle, Rev. Edward L. Buchanan, was the rector. 

In 1866, Miss Lane was married, at Wheatland, to Mr. 
Henry Elliott Johnston of Baltimore, a gentleman who 
had held her affections for many years. The congenial 
pair now abide in their luxurious home in Baltimore, and 
in private life, as wife and mother, she is as beautiful and 
more beloved than when, as Miss Lane, she was the proud 
lady of the President's House. 

It was the misfortune of Mrs. Lincoln to be the only 



236 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

woman personally assailed who ever presided in the White 
House. She entered it when sectional bitterness was at 
its height, and when the need of her country for the 
holiest and highest ministry of women was deeper than it 
had been in any era of its existence, even that of the 
Revolution. In that troubled hour, the White House 
needed a woman to preside over it of lofty soul, of conse- 
crated purpose, of the broadest and profoundest sympa- 
thies, and of self-forgetting piety. 

The life of the Nation was threatened. The horror of 
war was imminent. The capital was menaced, as it had 
never been before, by the treason of its own children. 
Wives, mothers and daughters, in ten thousand homes, 
were looking into the faces of husbands, sons and fathers, 
with trembling and with tears, and yet with sacrificial 
patriotism. They knew, they felt that the best-beloved 
were to be slain on their country's battle-fields. With 
what supreme devotion and consecration, would Abigail 
Adams, or a thousand women of her heroic type, have 
approached the Nation's House as the wife of its President 
in such an hour. It was the hour for self-forgetting — 
the hour of sacrifice. Personal vanity and elation, excu- 
sable in a more peaceful time, seemed unpardonable in this. 
Yet, in reviewing the character of the Presidents' wives, 
we shall see that there was never one who entered the 
White House with such a feeling of self-satisfaction, which 
amounted to personal exultation, as did Mary Lincoln. 
To her it was the fulfillment of a life-long ambition, and 
with the first low muttering of Avar distinctly heard, on 
every side, she made her journey to Washington a tri- 
umphal passage. 

A single month, and the President's call for troops to 




VIEW OF "TIIK CITY OF THE SLAIN." — ARLINGTON. 



! in. and date of death of each 



THE WHITE HOUSE DURING THE WAR. 237 

protect the capital had penetrated the remotest hamlet of 
the land. All the manly life-blood of the Nation surged 
toward its defence. All the heart of its womanhood went 
up to God, crying for its safety. In the distant farm-house 
women waited, breathless, the latest story of battle. In 
the crowded cities they gathered by thousands, crying, 
only, " Let me work for my brother : he dies for me ! " 

With the record of the march and the fight, and of the 
unseemly defeat, the newspapers teemed with gossip con- 
cerning the new lady of the White House. While her 
sister-women scraped lint, sewed bandages, and put on 
nurses' caps, and gave their all to country and to death, 
the wife of its President spent her time in rolling to and 
fro between Washington and New York, intent on extrav- 
agant purchases for herself and the White House. Mrs. 
Lincoln seemed to have nothing to do but to " shop," and 
the reports of her lavish bargains, in the newspapers, 
were vulgar and sensational in the extreme. The wives 
and daughters of other Presidents had managed to dress 
as elegant women, without the process of so doing becom- 
ing prominent or public. But not a new dress or jewel 
was bought by Mrs. Lincoln that did not find its way into 
the newspapers. 

Months passed, and the capital had become one vast 
hospital. The reluctant river every hour laid at the feet 
of the city its priceless freight of lacerated men. The 
wharves were lined with the dying and dead. One cease- 
less procession of ambulances moved to and fro. Our 
streets resounded with the shrieks of the sufferers which 
they bore. Churches, halls and houses were turned into 
hospitals. Every railroad-train that entered the city bore 
fresh troops to the Nation's rescue, and fresh mourners 



238 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". 

seeking their dead, who had died in its defence. Through 
all, Mrs. Lincoln " shopped." 

At the "White House, a lonely man, sorrowful at heart, 
and weighed down by mighty burdens, bearing the Nation's 
fate upon his shoulders, lived and toiled and suffered 
alone. His wife, during all the summer, was at the 
hotels of fashionable watering-places. Conduct compara- 
tively blameless in happier times, became culpable under 
such exigencies and in such shadow. Jarred, from the 
beginning, by Mrs. Lincoln's life, the Nation, under its 
heavy stress of sorrow, seemed goaded at last to exaspera- 
tion. Letters of rebuke, of expostulation, of anathema 
even, addressed to her, personally, came in to her from 
every direction. Not a day that did not bring her many 
such communications, denouncing her mode of life, her 
conduct, and calling upon her to fulfil the obligations, and 
meet the opportunities of her high station. 

To no other woman of America had ever been vouch- 
safed so full an opportunity for personal benevolence and 
philanthropy to her own countrymen. To no other 
American woman had ever come an equal chance to set a 
lofty example of self-abnegation to all her countrywomen. 
But just as if there were no national peril, no monstrous 
national debt, no rivers of blood flowing, she seemed 
chiefly intent upon pleasure, personal flattery and adula- 
tion; upon extravagant dress and ceaseless self -gratifi- 
cation. 

Vain, seeking admiration, the men who fed her weak- 
ness for their own political ends were sure of her favor. 
Thus, Avhile daily disgracing the State by her own ex- 
ample, she still sought to meddle in its affairs. Woe to 
Mr. Lincoln if he did not appoint her favorites. Prodigal 



SELLING MILK AT THE BACK DOOK. 239 

in personal expenditure, she brought shame upon the 
President's House, by petty economies, which had never 
disgraced it before. Had the milk of its dairy been sent 
to the hospitals, she would have received golden praise. 
But the whole city felt scandalized to have it haggled 
over and peddled from the back door of the White House. 
State dinners could have been dispensed with, without a 
word of blame, had their cost been consecrated to the 
soldiers' service ; but when it was made apparent that they 
were omitted from personal penuriousness and a desire to 
devote their cost to personal gratification, the public cen- 
sure knew no bounds. 

From the moment Mrs. Lincoln began to receive re- 
criminating letters, she considered herself an injured indi- 
vidual, the honored object of envy, jealousy and spite, and 
a martyr to her high position. No doubt some of them 
were unjust, and many more unkind ; but it never dawned 
upon her consciousness that any part of the provocation 
was on her side, and after a few tastes of their bitter 
draughts she ceased to open them. Even death did not 
spare lifer. Willie Lincoln, the loveliest child of the White 
House, was smitten and died, to the unutterable grief of 
his father and the wild anguish of his mother. She 
mourned according to her nature. Her loss did not draw 
her nearer in sympathy to the nation of mothers that 
moment weeping because their sons were not. It did not 
lead her in time to minister to such, whom death had 
robbed and life had left without alleviation. She shut 
herself in with her grief, and demanded of God why 
he had afflicted her ! Nobody suffered as she suffered. 
The Nation's House wore a pall, at last, not for its tens 
of thousands of brave sons slain, but for the President's 



240 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

child. The Guests' Room, in which he died, Mrs. Lincoln 
never entered again ; nor the Green Room, wherein, 
decked with flowers, his fair young body awaited burial. 

In the same way, Mrs. Lincoln bewept her husband. 
And there is no doubt but that, in that black hour, she 
suffered great injustice. She loved her husband with the 
intensity of a nature, deep and strong, within a narrow 
channel. The shock of his untimely and awful taking- 
off, might have excused a woman of loftier nature than 
hers for any accompanying paralysis. 

It was not strange that Mrs. Lincoln was not able to 
leave the White House for five weeks after her husband's 
death. It would have been stranger, had she been able 
to have left it sooner. It was her misfortune, that she 
had so armed public sympathy against her, by years of 
indifference to the sorrows of others, that when her 
own hour of supreme anguish came, there were few to 
comfort her, and many to assail. She had made many 
unpopular innovations upon the old, serene and stately 
regime of the President's house. Never a reign of con- 
cord, in her best day, in her hour of affliction it degen- 
erated into absolute anarchy. I believe the long-time 
steward had been dethroned, that Mrs. Lincoln might 
manage according to her own will. At-any-rate, while 
she was shut in with her woe, the White House was left 
without a responsible protector. The rabble ranged 
through it at will. Silver and dining-ware were carried 
off, and have never been recovered. It was plundered, 
not only of ornaments, but of heavy articles of furni- 
ture. Costly sofas and chairs were cut and injured. Ex- 
quisite lace curtains were torn hito rags, and carried off 
in pieces. 



ABOUT THE BIG BOXES. 241 

While all this was going on below, Mrs. Lincoln, shut 
up in her apartments, refused to see any one but servants, 
while day after day, immense boxes, containing her per- 
sonal effects, were leaving the White House for her newly- 
chosen abode in the West. The size and number of these 
boxes, with the fact of the pillaged aspect of the White 
House, led to the accusation, which so roused public feel- 
ing against her, that she was robbing the Nation's House, 
and carrying the national property with her into retire- 
ment. This accusation, which clings to her to this day, 
was probably unjust. Her personal effects, in all likeli- 
hood, amounted to as much as that of nearly all other 
Presidents' wives together, and the vandals who roamed 
at large through the length and breadth of the White 
House, were quite sufficient to account for all its missing 
treasures. 

The public also did Mrs. Lincoln injustice, in consider- 
ing her an ignorant, illiterate woman. She was well- 
born, gently reared, and her education above the average 
standard given to girls in her youth. She is a fair mis- 
tress of the French language, and in English can write a 
more graceful letter than one educated woman in fifty. 
She has quick perceptions, and an almost unrivalled 
power of mimicry. The only amusement of her desolate 
days, while shut in from the world in Chicago, when she 
refused to see her dearest friends and took comfort in the 
thought that she had been chosen as the object of pre- 
eminent affliction, was to repeat in tone, gesture and 
expression, the words, actions and looks of men and 
women who, in the splendor of her life in Washington, 
had happened to offend her. Her lack was not a lack of 

keen faculties, or of fair culture, but a constitutional 
16 



242 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

inability to rise to the action of high motive in a time 
when every true soul in the nation seemed to be im- 
pelled to unselfish deeds for its rescue. She was incapable 
of lofty, impersonal impulse. She was self-centred, and 
never in any experience rose above herself. According 
to circumstance, her own ambitions, her own pleasures, 
her own sufferings, made the sensation which absorbed 
and consumed every other. As a President's wife she 
could not rise above the level of her nature, and it was 
her misfortune that she never even approached the bound 
of her opportunity. 



CHAPTER XXV. 
THE WHITE HOUSE NOW— ITS PRESENT OCCUPANTS. 

After the War — The Home of President Johnson — Shut Up in the Moun- 
tains — Two Years of Exile — A Contrast — Suffering for their Country — 
Secretly Burying the Dead — A Wife of Seventeen Years — Midnight 
Studies — Broken Down — A Party of Grandchildren — " My Dears, I am 
an Invalid "— " God's Best Gift to Man "—The Woman Who Taught the 
President — A " Lady of Benign Countenance " — Doing the Honors at 
the White House— " We are Plain People "—The East Room Filled 
with Vermin — Traces of the Soldiers — A State of Dirt and Ruin — Mrs. 
Patterson's Calico Dress — In the Dairy — A Nineteenth Century Wonder 
— How the Old Carpets were Patched — The Greenbacks are Forthcoming 
— How $30,000 were Spent — Buying the Furniture — Working in Hot 
Weather — " Wrestling with Rags and Ruins " — " Renovated from Top to 
Bottom "—What the Ladies Wore, and What They Didn't— The Mem- 
ory of Elegant Attire — Impressing the Public Mind — How Unperverted 
Minds are Affected — " Bare-necked Dowagers — " A Large Crowd of 
Bare Busts " — Elderly Ladies with Raven Locks — The Opinion of a 
Woman of Fashion — Very Good Dinners — Obsequious to the Will of 
" the People " — Doors Open to the Mob — Sketching a Banquet — Senti- 
mental Reflections on the Dining Room — The Portraits of the Presidents 
— The Impeachment Trial — Peace in the Family — The Grant Dynasty — 
Looking Home-like — Mrs. Grant at Home — What Might Be Done, if — 
What Won't Work a Reformation — A Pity for Miss Nellie Grant — How 
She Suddenly " Came Out "—"A Full Fledged Woman of Fashion"— 
A " Shoal of Pretty Girls" — How a Certain Young Lady was Spoilt — 
Brushing Away " the Dew of Innocence " — Need of a Centripetal Soul 
— Society in the Season — Rare Women with no Tastes — The Wives of 
the Presidents Summed Up. 

MRS. LINCOLN was succeeded in the White House 
by three women, who entered its portals through 
the fiery baptism of suffering for their country's sake. 



244 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

While President Johnson was performing his duties as 
Senator in Washington, his family were shut up in the 
mountains of East Tennessee, where the ravages of war 
were most dreadful. For more than two years he was 
unable to set eyes on either wife or child. While many 
of the mushroom aristocracy, who afterwards looked upon 
them so superciliously, were coining their ill-gotten dol- 
lars out of the blood of their country, these brave, loyal 
women were being " hunted from point to point, driven to 
seek refuge in the wilderness, forced to subsist on coarse 
and insufficient food, and more than once called to bury 
with secret and stolen sepulture those whom they loved, 
murdered because they would not join in deeds of odious 
treason to union and liberty." 

President Johnson's youngest daughter entered the 
White House a widow, recently bereaved of her husband, 
who fell a soldier in the Union cause. His wife, who at 
seventeen was his teacher, when " in the silent Avatches 
of the night the youthful couple studied together," when 
their weary tasks were done, came to the White House 
broken in health and spirits, through the suffering and 
bereavements through which she had passed. She was 
never seen but on one public occasion at the White 
House, that of a children's party, given to her grand- 
children. At that time she was seated in one of the 
republican court-chairs of satin and ebony. She did not 
rise when the children or guests were presented, but 
simply said, " My dears, I am an invalid," and her sad, 
pale face and sunken eyes proved the expression. She is 
an invalid now ; but an observer would say, contemplat- 
ing her, " A noble woman, God's best gift to man." It 
was that woman who taught the President, after she 



"PLAIN" PEOPLE FROM TENNESSEE." 245 

became his wife ; and in all their early years she was his 
assistant counsellor and guide. 

Liable to be arrested for the slightest offense ; ofttimes 
insulted by the rabble, Mrs. Johnson performed the per- 
ilous journey from Greenville to Nashville. Few who 
were not actual participators in the civil war can form an 
estimate of the trials of this noble woman. Invalid, as 
she was, she yet endured exposure and anxiety, and 
passed through the extended lines of hostile armies, 
never uttering a hasty word, or, by her looks, betraying 
in the least degree her harrowed feelings. She is remem- 
bered by friend and foe as a lady of benign countenance 
and sweet and winning manners. 

During her husband's administration, the heavy duties 
and dubious honors of the White House were performed 
by her oldest daughter, Martha Patterson, the wife of 
Senator Patterson of Tennessee. That lady's utterance, 
soon after entering the White House, was a key to her 
character, yet scarcely a promise of her own distinguislied 
management of the President's house. She said : " We 
are plain people from the mountains of Tennessee, called 
here for a short time by a national calamity. I trust too 
much will not be expected of us." The career of Mrs. 
Lincoln had chilled the people to expect little from the 
feminine administrator of the White House; but from 
Martha Patterson they received much, and that of the 
most unobtrusive and noble service. 

The family of the new President arrived in June. 
Here was a new field entirely for the diffident woman 
who was compelled to do the honors, in lieu of her 
mother — a confirmed invalid. The house looked anything 
but inviting. Soldiers had wandered unchallenged through 



246 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". 

the entire suites of parlors. The East Room, dirty and 
soiled, was filled with vermin. Guards had slept upon 
the sofas and carpets till they were ruined, and the im- 
mense crowds who, during the preceding years of war, 
filled the President's house continually had worn out the 
already ancient furniture. No sign of neatness or com- 
fort greeted their appearance, but evidences of neglect 
and decay everywhere met their eyes. To put aside all 
ceremony and work incessantly, was the portion of Mrs. 
Patterson from the beginning. It was her practice to 
rise very early, don a calico dress and spotless apron, and 
then descend to skim the milk and attend to the dairy 
before breakfast. Remembering this fact, of a President's 
daughter, in the President's house, in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, for a brief moment, let us cease to bemoan the 
homely virtues of our grandmothers as forever dead and 
buried. 

At the first reception of President Johnson, held Janu- 
ary 1, 1866, the White House had not been renovated. 
Dingy and destitute of ornament Martha Patterson had 
by dint of covering its old carpets with pure linen, and 
hiding its wounds with fresh flowers, and letting her beau- 
tiful children loose in its rooms, given it an aspect of 
purity, beauty and cheer, to which it had long been a 
stranger. 

In the spring, Congress appropriated thirty thousand 
dollars to the renovation of the White House. After 
consulting various firms, Mrs. Patterson found that it 
would take the whole amount to furnish simply the par- 
lors. Feeling a personal responsibilhVy to the government 
for the expenditure of the money, unlike her predecessor, 
she determined not to surpass it. She made herself its 



WRESTLING WITH RAGS AND EITINS. 247 

agent, and superintended the purchases for the dismantled 
house herself. Instead of seeking pleasure by the sea, or 
ease in her own mountain home, the hot summer waxed 
and waned only to leave the brave woman where it found 
her, wrestling with rags and ruins that were to be reset, 
repolished, " made over as good as new." For herself ? 
No, for her country ; and all this in addition to caring for 
husband, children and invalid mother. 

The result of this ceaseless industry and self-denial 
was, the President's house in perfect order and thoroughly 
renovated from top to bottom. When it was opened for 
the winter season, the change was apparent and marvel- 
ous, even to the dullest eyes, but very few knew that the 
fresh, bright face of the historic house was all due to the 
energy, industry, taste and tact of one woman, the Presi- 
dent's daughter. The warm comfort of the dining room, 
the exquisite tints of the Blue Room, the restful neutral 
hues meeting and blending in carpets and furniture in 
many rooms of the White House still remain harmonious 
witnesses of the pure taste of Martha Patterson. The 
dress of the ladies of the White House was equally re- 
markable. The public had grown to expect loud display 
in the costume of its occupants. But all who went to see 
the " plain people from Tennessee " overloaded with new 
ornaments, were disappointed. Instead, they saw beside 
the President a young, golden-haired woman, dressed in 
full mourning, — the sad badge still worn for the gallant 
husband slain by war, — and a slender woman with a single 
white flower in her dark hair. Instead of the lace bosom 
and arms, the pronounced hues and glittering jewels 
which had so long obtained in that place, they saw soft 
laces about the throat ending the high corsage ; a robe of 



248 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

soft tints and a shawl of lace veiling the slender figure. 
It was like a picture in half tints, soothing to the sight ; 
yet the dark hair, broad brow and large eyes were full of 
silent force and reserved power. Little was expected, 
even in dress, of these " plain people from Tennessee," 
yet the chaste elegance of their attire was never surpassed 
by any ladies of the White House, and its memory re- 
mains an example which it is a pity that ladies of society 
are so slow to imitate. 

The impression made upon the public mind by the tone 
and spirit of their attire is significant as gathered from 
the utterance of contemporaneous newspapers. It be- 
trays how dress of an opposite character always affects 
unperverted minds. A journal of the day says : " Mrs. 
Patterson, who stood at the right of the President, wore a 
black Lyons velvet, a shawl of white thread lace falling 
over her dress. The simple, unaffected grace of this lady, 
and her entire freedom from pretension, either in garb or 
manner, attracted highly favorable comment. Mrs. Pat- 
terson is quite a young lady, and when some of the bare- 
necked would-be juvenile dowagers were presented to 
her, the contrast was entirely in favor of the President's 
daughter." 

" Mrs. Stover assisted the President, and won golden opinions 
from sensible people for her faultless taste, and high-necked 
costume in a large crowd of bare busts. Elderly ladies, whose 
truthful wrinkles, despite their raven locks, betrayed their years, 
stood about her in low bodices, exposing to view shoulders long 
ago bereft of beauty and symmetry. Mothers, whose daughters 
walked beside them, in similar attire, gathered about her in 
their flashing diamonds and expensive apparel, but no peer of 
hers eclipsed her rich simplicity. Alone she stood, so taste- 



BEFORE DINNER. 249 

fully arrayed that the poor who came were not abashed by her 
presence, nor the rich offended by her rarer toilette. The per- 
fect harmony of her appearance pleased the eyes of all." 

The spirit of these comments redeems them from the 
faintest touch of Jenkinsism. In this connection, it is easy 
to understand the comment of a woman of fashion, on 
Mrs. Stover. She said: "She has very fine points, which 
would make any woman a belle, if she knew how to make 
the most of them." 

The state dinners given by President Johnson, were 
never surpassed in any administration. They were con- 
ducted on a generous, almost princely scale, and reflected 
lasting honor upon his daughter, to whom was committed 
the entire care and arrangement of every social enter- 
tainment. Simple and democratic in her own personal 
tastes, Mrs. Patterson had a high sense of what was due 
to the position, and to the people, from the family of the 
President of a great Nation. This sense of duty and jus- 
tice led her to spare no pains in her management of official 
entertainments, and the same high qualities made her 
keep the White House parlors and conservatories open 
and ready for the crowds of people who daily visited 
them, at any cost to her own taste or comfort. 

The following sketch of the last state dinner given by 
President Johnson, written by a personal friend, is so 
vivid and life-like, bringing the historic house so near, in 
the closing hours of an administration, I am constrained 
to give it to you: 

" Late in the afternoon, I was sitting in the cheerful room 
occupied by the invalid mother, when Mrs. Patterson came for 
me to go and see the table. The last state dinner was to be 



250 TEN YEARS IX WASHINGTON. 

given this night, and the preparation for the occasion had been 
commensurate with those of former occasions. 

" I looked at the invalid, whose feet had never crossed the 
apartment to which we were going, and by whom the elegant 
entertainments, over which her daughters presided, were totally 
unenjoyed. Through the hall, and down the stairway, I fol- 
lowed my hostess, and stood beside her in the grand old room. 

" It was a beautiful, and altogether a rare scene, which I 
viewed in the quiet light of that closing winter day. The table 
was arranged for forty persons, each guest's name being upon 
the plate designated on the invitation list. In the centre stood 
three magnificent ormolu ornaments, filled with fadeless French 
flowers, while, beside each plate, was a bouquet of odorous green- 
house exotics. It was not the color or design of the Sevres 
China, of green and gold, the fragile glass, nor yet the massive 
plate, which attracted my admiration, but the harmonj^ of the 
whole, which satisfied and refreshed. From the heav}^ curtains, 
depending from the lofty windows, to the smallest ornament in 
the room, all was ornate and consistent. I could not but con- 
trast this vision of grandeur with the delicate, child-like form 
of the woman who watched me with a quiet smile, as I enjoyed 
this evidence of her taste, and appreciation of the beautiful. 
All day she had watched over the movements of those engaged 
in the arrangement of this room, and yet so unobtrusive had 
been her presence, and so systematically had she planned, that 
no confusion occurred in the complicated domestic machinery. 
For the pleasure it would give her children, hereafter, she had 
an artist photograph the interior of the apartment, and he was 
just leaving with his trophy, as we entered. All was ready and 
complete, and when we passed from the room, there was still 
time for rest before the hour named in the cards of invitation. 

"It was almost twilight, as we entered the East 

Room, and its sombreness and wondrous size struck me forcibly. 
The hour for strangers and visitors had passed, and we felt at 
liberty to wander, in our old-fashioned way, up and down its 
great length." 



THE MEMOET OF THAT AFTEKISTOO^". 251 

" It was softly raining, we discovered, as we peered through 
the window, and a light fringe of mist hung over the trees in 
the grounds. The feeling of balmy comfort one feels in watch- 
ing it rain, from the window of a cozy room, was intensified by 
the associations of this historic place, and the sadness of time 
was lost in the outreachings of eternity. Its spectral appear- 
ance, as we turned from the window and looked down its shad- 
owy outlines, the quickly succeeding thoughts of the many who 
had crowded into its now deserted space, and the remembrance 
of some who would no more come, were fast crowding out the 
practical, and leaving in its place mental excitement, and spirit- 
ualized nervous influences. Mrs. Patterson was the first to note 
the flight of time, and, as we turned, to leave with the past 
the hour it claimed, her grave face lighted up with a genuinely 
happy expression, as she said: 'I am glad this is the last enter- 
tainment ; it suits me better to be quiet, and in my own home. 
Mother is not able to enjoy these things. Belle is too young, 
and I am indifferent to them — so it is well it is almost over.' 

" As she ceased speaking, the curtains over the main entrance 
parted, and the President peered in, ' to see,' he said, ' if Mar- 
tha had shown me the portraits of the Presidents.' Joining 
him in his promenade, we passed before them, as they were 
hanging in the main hall, he dwelling on the life and character 
of each, we listening to his descriptions, and personal recollec- 
tions. 

" At the dinner, afterwards, not the display of beautiful toil- 
ettes, nor the faces of lovely women, could draw from my mind 
the memory of that afternoon. More than ever, I was con- 
vinced that the best of our natures is entirely out of the reach 
of ordinary events, and the finest fibres are rarely, if ever, made 
to thrill in sympathy with outward influences. Grave states- 
men, and white-haired dignitaries chatted merrily with fair 
young ladies, or sedate matrons ; but turn where I would, the 
burden of my thoughts were the remarks of Mrs. Patterson, 
whose unselfish devotion to her father, deserves a more fitting 
memorial than this insignificant mention. With her opposite 



252 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

him, and by her proximity, relieving him of much of the neces- 
sity of entertaining, he enjoyed and bestowed pleasure, and won 
for these social entertainments a national reputation. 

" During the impeachment trial of her father, unflinchingly 
Mrs. Patterson bent every energy to entertain, as usual, as be- 
came her position, wearing always a patient, suffering look. 
Through the long weeks of the trial, she listened to every re- 
quest, saw every caller, and served every petitioner, (and only 
those who have filled this position, know how arduous is this 
duty,) hiding from all eyes the anxious weight of care oppress- 
ing herself. That she was sick after the acquittal, astonished 
nobody who had seen her struggling to keep up before." 

But no matter what the accusations against Andrew 
Johnson, they died into silence without touching his fam- 
ily. If corruption crossed the outer portals of the White 
House, the whole land knew that they never penetrated 
into the pure recesses of the President's home. Whatever 
Andrew Johnson was or was not, no partisan foe was 
bitter or false enough to throw a shadow of reproach 
against the noble characters of his wife and daughters. 
There was no insinuation, no charge against them. There 
was no furniture or ornaments gone ; nor could any one 
say that they had received costly presents : — no expen- 
sive plate, no houses, horses, or carriages. No family 
ever left Washington more respected by the powerful, 
more bewept by the poor. From the Nation's House, 
which they had redeemed and honored, they went back 
empty-handed to their own dismantled home, followed by 
the esteem and affection of all w T ho knew them. The 
White House holds the record of their spotless fame. 
Generations will pass before, from its grand old rooms, will 
fade out the healing and saving touches of one President's 
daughter. 



DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE WHITE IIOUSE. 253 

The life of the White House under the administration 
of President Grant is a purely domestic one. It is the 
remark of all who have known its past, that the White 
House never looked so home-like as at the present time. 
It took on this aspect under the reign of Martha Patter- 
son. But since then, pictures and ornaments have been 
added, one by one, till all its old-time stiffness seems to 
have merged into a look of grand comfort. Its roof may 
leak occasionally, and it certainly was built before the 
day of " modern conveniences," and may be altogether 
inadequate to be the President's house of a great Nation ; 
nevertheless, that Nation has no occasion to be ashamed 
of its order or adornment to-day. 

As in the Johnson administration, the house is bright- 
ened by ever-blooming flowers, and the presence of happy 
children. Mr. Dent, the venerable father of Mrs. Grant, 
also makes a marked feature of its social life, and is the ob- 
ject not only of the ceaseless devotion of his family, but of 
the respect of all their visitors. 

Mrs. Grant is now, as she always has been, devoted to 
her family. Her chief enjoyment is in it, in its cares and 
pleasures ; the latter, however, in her present life, largely 
preponderating. Born without the natural gifts or graces 
which could have made her a leader of other minds, even 
in the surface realm of society, she is, nevertheless, very 
fond of social entertainments, and enters into them with 
a good nature, and visible enjoyment, which at times goes 
far to take the place of higher and more positive charac- 
teristics. If to the affectionate domestic life of the White 
House could be added a finer culture and higher intellect- 
ual quality as the highest social centre of the land, giving 
exclusive tone to the official society, it might do more 



254 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

than words could tell to redeem from frivolity and vicious 
dissipation the fashionable life of the capital. Mere good 
nature, good clothes, and unutterable commonplace are 
not forces sufficient to, in themselves, work out this 
reformation. 

On the whole it is . a sad sight to see a President's 
daughter, an only daughter, at an age when any thought- 
ful mother would shield her from the allurements of pleas- 
ure, and shut her away in safety to study and grow to 
harmonious and beautiful womanhood, suddenly launched 
into the wild tide of frivolous pleasure. Thus, while the 
daughters of Senators and Cabinet ministers, far from 
Washington, under faithful teachers, were learning truly 
how to live, and acquiring the discipline and accomplish- 
ments which would fit them to adorn their high estate, 
Ellen Grant, a gentle girl of seventeen, with mind and 
manners unfed and unformed, suddenly " came out " a 
full-fledged young woman of fashion, spoken of almost 
exclusively as the driver of a phaeton, and the leader of 
the all-night " German." 

As a result, Washington is crowded with a shoal of 
pretty girls, bright and lovely as God had made them ; 
by a false life, late hours, voluptuous dances, made already 
hard, old, blase, often before their feet have touched the 
first verge of womanhood. I think of one, but one, amid 
hundreds, the daughter of a high officer, graceful, taste- 
ful, the queen of dancers, and of all night revels, but 
empty of mind, hard of heart, brazen of manners ! Who 
looking on her face can fail to see that the dew of inno- 
cence is brushed from it forever. 

The prevailing lack of fashionable society in Washing- 
ton, to-day, is high motive, purity of feeling, a more 



MRS. GEANT AT HOME. 255 

varied and brighter intelligence. These all exist, and in 
no meagre proportion, but as scattered elements, they 
wait the supreme social queen, the centripetal soul which 
shall draw them into one potent and prevailing power that 
shall lift the whole social life of the capital to a higher 
plane of assthetic attire, culture, and amusement. For- 
tunately, Mrs. Grant has been surrounded by numerous 
ladies in official life of superior mental endowment and 
culture, and true social grace. This is especially true of 
a portion of " the ladies of the Cabinet," of the Senators' 
wives from several States, and of no small number among 
the wives of Representatives. Many ladies, whose hus- 
bands are in Congress, bring the most exquisite tastes in 
art, music and literature, and the loveliest of womanhood 
to grace the life of "Washington. For what is termed its 
" society " in the " season," the pity is these rare women 
have no taste, it is to them a burden, or an offence, and 
they have never yet combined in organized force (which 
alone is power) to uplift and redeem it. 

Nevertheless, Washington is rapidly becoming an intel- 
lectual as well as social centre. The large and varied in- 
terests which concentrate in a national capital tend more 
and more to draw the highest intellectual as well as social 
forces into its life. These need but assimilation, fusion, 
unity and purpose to develop into the most superb mani- 
festation of civilization. In looking back upon the wives 
of the Presidents, we discover, with but two or three 
exceptions, they were women of remarkable powers and 
exalted character. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
MRS. GRANT'S RECEPTION— GLIMPSES OF LIFE. 

Mrs. Grant at Home — A Reception — Feeling Good-Natured — Looking After 
One's Friends — Ready to Forgive — Mr. Grant's " Likeable Side " — The 
East Room on a Reception Day — "The Nation's Parlor" — Rags and 
Tatters Departed — The Work of Relic-hunters — Internal Arrangements — 
Eight Presidents, All In a Row — " As Large as Life " — Shadows of the 
Departed — A Present from the Sultan of Turkey — A List of Finery — 
A Scene Not Easily Forgotten — How They Wept for Their Martyr — 
Tales which a Room Might Tell — David, Jonathan'and Sir Philip Sidney 
Superseded — Underneath the Gold and Lace — " Into the Ear of a Fool- 
ish Girl" — The Census of Spittoons" — " A Horror in Our Land" — An 
Under-bred People — " We Talk too Loud " — Preliminaries to Perfection — 
" More Than Shakspeare's Women " — The Shadow of Human Nature — 
Two " Quizzing" Ladies — Nothing Sacred to Them — An Illogical Dame 
— Her "Precarious Organ" — A "Vice that Thrives Amid Christian 
Graces " — How some Pious People " Avenge their Defrauded Souls " — 
A Lady of Many Colors — " A New Woman" — A Vegetable Compari- 
son — What " a Good Little Girl" was Allowed To Do — The Lady of 
the Manor — Women Who are Not Ashamed of Womanhood — Observed 
and Admired of All — Another " Reigning Belle " — Sketch of a Perfect 
Woman — After the Lapse of Generations — The " German " — " You Had 
Better Be Shut Up" — The " Withering" of Many American Women — 
Full Dress and No Dress — What the Princess Ghika Thinks — A Young 
Girl's Dress — " That Dreadful Woman " — '■'My Wife's " Dress — The Reso- 
lution of a Young Man. 

IT is Tuesday — Mrs. Grant's day — and all the gay world 
is going to the White House, besides a portion of that 
world which is not gay. 

Mrs. Grant's morning receptions are very popular, and 
deservedly so. This is not because the ladjj is in any 



A RECEPTION AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 257 

sense a conversationalist, or has a fine tact in receiving, 
but rather, I think, because she is thoroughly good- 
natured, and for the time, at least, makes other people 
feel the same. At any rate, there was never so little for- 
mality or so much genuine sociability in the day-recep- 
tions at the White House as at the present time. Gen- 
eral Babcock pronounces your name without startling voir 
out of your boots by shouting it, as on such occasions is 
usually done. He passes it to the President, the Presi- 
dent to Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Grant to ladies receiving with 
her. After exchanging salutations with each, you pass on 
to make room for others, and to find your own personal 
friends dispersed through the great rooms. They are in 
each of them ; loitering in the Blue Room, where the re- 
ceiving is going on ; chatting in the Green Room ; prom- 
enading in the Red Room. You may go through the 
long corridor into the state dining-room, into the conserv- 
atories, full of flowers and fragrance, and back, if you 
choose, to your starting-point, where the President and 
Mrs. Grant are still receiving. 

This is one of the pleasantest facts of these morning 
receptions — the informal coming down of the President 
to receive with Mrs. Grant. I have never been accused of 
over enthusiasm for him, but find myself ready to forgive 
in him the traits which I cannot like, when I see him, with 
his daughter, beside Mrs. Grant. Then, it is so perfectly 
evident that, whatever the President may or may not be, 
" Mr. Grant " has a very true and likeable side, with which 
nobody is so well acquainted as Mrs. Grant. 

Here is the East Room, that you have read about so 

long. It never looked so well before. There are flaws 

in the harmony of its decorations which we might pick 
17 



258 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

at ; but we won't, as we are not here to-day to find fault. 
Besides, it is too pleasant to see that the nation's parlor, 
erst so forlorn, has absolutely taken on a look of home 
comfort. In proportions it is a noble room, long and 
lofty. It has seven windows — three in front, facing 
Pennsylvania avenue and Lafayette square ; three look- 
ing out upon the presidential grounds and the Potomac ; 
and a stately bay window overlooking the Treasury. It 
has four white marble mantel-pieces, two on each side. 
It has eight mirrors, filling the spaces over the mantels 
and between the windows. Richly wrought lace curtains 
have taken the place of the tatters left there a few years 
ago, when the curtains of the White House windows 
were scattered over the country in tags, taken home by 
relic-hunters. Over these hang draperies of crimson 
brocatelle, surmounted by gilt cornices, bearing the arms 
of the United States. The walls and ceilings are frescoed, 
and from the latter depend three immense chandeliers of 
cut glass, which, when lighted, blaze like mimic suns. 
On the walls hang the oil portraits, in heavy gilt frames, 
of eight Presidents of the United States. Opposite the 
door, as you enter, is the portrait of Filmore. On the 
other side of the mantel, that of Lincoln. Next beyond 
the bay window, that of Washington ; all of life size. 
Beyond the further mantel is that of Franklin Pierce. 
Above the door opposite, one of John Adams. Above 
the next door, of Martin Van Buren ; the next, of Polk ; 
the last above the entrance door, of John Tyler. 

The carpet on the East Room, last year, was presented 
to the United States by the Sultan of Turkey. It seemed 
like one immense rug, covering the entire floor, and filled 
the room with an atmosphere of comfort, grand, soft, and 



THE MEMOET OF A CEETAIN DAY. 259 

warm. The chairs and sofas are of carved wood, crimson 
cushioned. A handsome bronze clock ticks above one 
of the mantels, the others are adorned with handsome 
bronzes. The air is summer warm. On the whole, isn't 
the people's parlor a pleasant place? I never enter it, 
but comes back to me that tearful April morning when, 
in the centre of this floor, under the white catafalque, lay 
the body of Abraham Lincoln, dead. The crowd pressing 
in then, how different from this one! Rugged soldiers 
bent down and kissed his face and wept, women scattered 
flowers upon his breast, with their tears. Rich and poor, 
old and young, black and white, all crowded round his 
coffin, and wept for him, — one, only one, of the most au- 
gust, of the martyrs of liberty. 

Think what tales the room could tell, since the day when 
Abigail Adams dried her clothes from the weekly wash, 
in it, if it but had a tongue. Stand here, and see the 
stately procession move by. Believe in your own day, 
my dears. You need not go back to Sir Philip Sidney, 
to find a perfect gentleman, nor to David and Jonathan, 
to find faith and love between man and man, passing the 
love of woman, nor to the days of chivalry, to find true 
knights who would die for you. Here are men bearing, 
under all this glitter of gold and lace, bodies battered and 
maimed in their country's cause. There, is a man, pour- 
ing foolish nothings into the ear of a foolish girl, who 
would die for the truth. 

We are far from being a thorough-bred people. The 
census of spittoons is a horror in our land. We talk too 
loud, and too long; we gesticulate too much; we can not 
keep quiet. We need, at least, more capacity for repose, 
more unselfish consideration for the sensibilities of others, 



260 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

more of the golden rule, before we can flower into the 
perfection of fine breeding. Yet, no less here, are men at 
once strong and gentle, brave and tender, gallant and yet 
true. Here are all and more than Shakespeare's women: 
Juliet, searching for her Romeo ; Miranda, looking through 
her starry eyes for a " thing divine " even in the Red Room ; 
tender Imogen; fair Titania; Portia, with hair of golden 
brown; and Desdemona, imprudent, fond, yet truth itself. 
Here is not only the beauty and the belle, but the sibyl, 
whose divining eyes beyond volition, strike below every 
sham and every falsehood. 

Yet here, too, falls the shadow of human nature. There 
stand two ladies, whose supreme enjoyment here is "quiz- 
zing." Among their thousand " dear friends " here, not 
one is too sacred to be ridiculed. One of these ladies, at 
least, would feel as if she had forfeited "her soul's salva- 
tion," if she were to go to the theatre, or to give counte- 
nance to a dance; but it does not occur to her, that she 
puts that jjrecarious organ in the slightest peril, when she 
stands in a public assembly, and ridicules her friends. 

These ladies are merely yielding to a vice which has 
grown with their years, strengthened with their strength, 
the vice that thrives amid Christian graces, the vice para- 
mount of the Christian church. The most unkind people 
whom I have ever known, have been distinguished for an 
ostentatious sort of piety. The most uncharitable con- 
clusions, the most pitiless judgments, the most merciless 
ridicule, that I have ever listened to, of poor human beings, 
I have heard from people high in the church, not from 
people of the so-called "world." This, not because the 
normal human nature in either differs, but because the 
people of the world have a thousand outlets and activities 



THE LADY OF THE MANOE. 261 

which draw them away from microscopic inspection of 
the flaws in their neighbors; while ascetic pietists, denied 
legitimate amusements, shut out from innocent recreation, 
avenge their defrauded souls by feeding them on small 
vices. I offer no defence for a life of folly; there is 
nothing I should dread more, save a life of sin. Yet, if I 
were to make a choice, I would choose foolishness rather 
than meanness. 

This lady, flashing by in many hues, represents what 
one sees continually in Washington — a new woman. Not 
new to the city merely, but new to position and honor. 
These are but slight external accidents to a nature that 
has ripened from within, drawing culture, refinement, and 
dignity out of the daily opportunities of retired life. But, 
when the public position is all that gives the honor, how 
easy to tell it ! There is all the difference in the quality 
of the put-on, puckering manner, and the simple dignity 
of real ladyhood, that there is between the quality of a 
persimmon and a pomegranate. All she has is new. She, 
herself, is new. Her bearing and her honors do not blend. 
There is no soft and fine shading of thought, of manner, 
of accent, of attire. The sun of prosperity may strike 
down to a rarer vein, and draw it outward, to tone down 
this boastful commonplace; but we must bear the glare, 
the smell of varnish, and the crackle of veneering, during 
the process. 

When I was a very good little girl, I was allowed to 
read Mrs. Sherwood's Lady of the Manor, on Sunday. I 
read, and thought that heaven on earth must be shut up 
in a manor house. When I grew to be a somewhat big- 
ger girl, sailing down the Hudson, a manor house, rich in 
historic recollections, was pointed out to me. And here, 



262 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

in my summer-time, comes the lady of this manor house, 
drops her gentle courtesy, and gives me her hand, making 
more than real the enchanted story of childhood. The 
lady of the manor in crude Washington revives the 
stately graces of old days. 

How quaint and rare they are ! How I look and long 
for it ; how glad I am when I find it, — that indefinable, 
yet ever-felt presence of fine womanliness, a thing as 
precious as the highest manliness, — each the rarest effer- 
vescence of human nature. I confess to a clinging adora- 
tion for it, whether felt in the lady of the manor or in the 
sad-eyed woman who cleans my gloves. The womanli- 
ness that is not ashamed nor dissatisfied with womanhood, 
nor yet vain of it; the womanliness that gives us the 
gracious, blending dignity and sweetness of wisdom and 
humility, of self-respect and reticence, of spirituality and 
tenderness — that ineffable charm of femininity, which is 
the counterpart and crown of manhood, in very distinc- 
tion equal with it, each together maintaining in equilib- 
rium the brain and soul of the human race. 

Even while I write word comes : The lady of the 
manor is dead. The quaint hood, the stately grace, the 
winning smile we shall see no more. All have gone into 
the darkness of death. And who was the lady of the 
manor, who for three winters in Washington has been 
the observed and admired of all who met her in the 
circles of society ? She was Cora Livingston Barton, the 
reigning belle of Jackson's administration. She was the 
daughter of Edward Livingston, who served his country 
as Member of Congress and Senator from Louisiana, as 
Secretary of State during Jackson's administration, and 
as United States Minister to France. Her father was as 



A PICTUKE OF A PEKFECT WOMAN. 263 

distinguished for goodness as he was for noble intellect 
and exalted public service, and her mother was one of 
the most remarkable women who ever graced the Na- 
tional Capital. She was a social queen of the rarest 
endowments. She was the chosen friend and dear coun- 
sellor of two persons as opposite in nature and tempera- 
ment as General Jackson and Mrs. John Quincy Adams. 
She was a very queen of entertainers, as the wife of the 
Secretary of State, entertaining foreigners and Americans 
and political foes, with an ease, elegance and fascination 
of manner, which annihilated alike all prejudice and ani- 
mosity. She was a classical scholar, familiar with the best 
ancient and modern thoughts. The chosen counsellor of 
her husband in the gravest affairs of State, — a self-abne- 
gating mother, — a devout Methodist, she having chosen 
that communion as her own on account of the simplicity 
and fervor of its mode of worship. 

Of this rare woman, our " lady of the manor " was 
the only child. " Upon her she lavished extraordinary 
maternal devotion, hardly ever suffering her to be out of 
her sight. Her daughter had hardly reached girlhood 
when her beautiful mother assumed the simplest matronly 
attire. Ever afterwards she seemed rather displeased 
than flattered when allusions were made to her own still 
remarkable appearance." 

Cora Livingston was worthy to be the child of such a 
mother. She was the most famous telle of the Jackson 
administration. She married Thomas Barton, who went 
as Secretary of Legation with her father, the Minister to 
France, and who remained as Charge a" Affaires when 
Edward Livingston returned. 

In the course of time, mother and daughter, both 



264 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

widows, spent their winters in New York and their sum- 
mers at Montgomery Place, that grand old manor on the 
Hudson, of which we catch glimpses through its imme- 
morial trees, as we sail by on the river. Here, beautiful 
and saintly, that mother died, October, 1860, at the age of 
seventy-eight. 

Warned by physicians to seek a softer climate, after the 
lapse of generations, in the winter of 1871 the daughter 
returned to Washington, the scene of her childish home 
and early triumphs. She did not belong to things gone 
by. With her two stately and beautiful nieces she be- 
came at once the centre of a rare group of friends, of 
the attention and reverence o| the first men in the State, 
and an object of admiring comment wherever she appeared. 
She appeared at many morning receptions. I see her 
now as I saw her the first time stepping from her carriage 
into the great portico of the White House, across its cor- 
ridor to the Blue Room, with the light, springing step of a 
girl ; and yet, the soft clinging black dress, the quaint 
hood of black silk, with its inside snowy ruche, all told 
that she made not the slightest pretence to youth. And 
now, in these summer days, comes the word : " While 
packing some books in a trunk to go to Montgomery 
Place, she bent down, burst a blood vessel in the head, 
and without warning died." 

• They have all been morning receptions to which I have 
asked you, — the " morning " ending at 5 P. M. I can- 
not invite you to go to the " German," which begins at 
11 P. M. and ends at daybreak. I have too deep a care 
for your physical and spiritual health to ask you to do 
any such thing. When you read of the gay doings and 
bright assemblies here, perhaps you think it hard some- 



AMEEICAN WOMEN. 265 

times that you must stay away in a quiet place to work 
or study. You feel almost defrauded because you are 
shut out from the splendor and mirth and flattery of 
fashion. You long for the pomp and glory of the world, 
and sigh that so little of either falls on your life-path. 
Thus I shall seem cruel to you when I say that you had 
better be shut up for the five years, even in a convent, 
silently growing toward a noble life in the world after- 
ward, than to be caught and carried on by its follies now, 
before you have learned how to live. 

Are you young ? Then you should be more beautiful 
at twenty-five, at thirty, at thirty-five, than you are now. 
Not with the budding bloom of first youth, that is as 
evanescent as it is exquisite. What a pity that it is 
beauty's only dower to so many American women. They 
waste it, lose it, then wilt and wither. I want you so to 
feel the sources of life to-day that you may grow, not 
fade; that you may bloom, not fade, into the perfect 
flower of womanhood. 

Terpsichore is a sad sight to me ; not because Terpsi- 
chore dances, for dancing in itself may be as innocent as 
a bird's flying ; not because she loves beautiful attire, for 
exquisite dress is a feminine fine art, as meet for a woman 
as the flower's tint, or the bird's plumage. I sigh at the 
sight of my pretty Terpsichore, because the first bloom 
of her exquisite youth is being exhaled and lost forever 
in a feverish, false atmosphere of being. Something of 
delicate sensibility, something of unconscious innocence, 
something of freshness of feeling, of purity of soul is 
wasted with the fresh young bloom of her cheeks in the 
midnight revel, lengthened into morning ; wasted in the 
heated dance, in the indigestible feast, in the wild, un- 



266 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

healthy excitement through which she whirls night after 
night. Terpsichore, in her tattered tarletan dress, creep- 
ing to bed in the gray morning, after having danced all 
night, is a sad sight to see to any one who can see her as 
she is. Terpsichore's mother would be a sadder sight 
still, if she were not a vexatious one. She brought back 
from Europe the notion, which so many of our country- 
women think it fine to bring, that " full dress " is neces- 
sarily next to no dress. She tells you, in a supreme tone, 
that admits no denial, that you would not be admitted 
into the drawing-room of a court in Europe unless in full 
dress, viz., semi-nakedness. She would be nothing, if not 
European in style. Thus, night after night, this mother 
of grown-up daughters and sons appears in crowded assem- 
blies in attire that would befit in outline a child of eight 
years of age. If we venture to meet her ipse dixit on 
European style, with the assurance of the Princess Hele- 
na, Ghika, Dora Distier, one of the most learned and 
beautiful women of this world, that the conventional 
society dress of Europe is more immodest than any she 
saw while traveling over the mountains and valleys of 
the East, she will tell you that Princess Ghika " is not an 
authority on dress in Paris," which is doubtless true. 

Thus, in republican Washington, in glaring drawing- 
rooms, we are treated to a study of female anatomy, 
which is appalling. Don't jump to the conclusion that I 
want every lady to go to a party in a stuff dress, drawn 
up to her ears ; nor that I am so prudish as to think no 
dress can be modestly, as well as immodestly low. No 
matter how it be cut, the way in which a dress is worn is 
more impressive than the dress itself. I have seen a 
young girl's shoulders rise from her muslin frock as 



MEN" AND MODESTY. 267 

unconsciously and as innocently as the lilies in the garden ; 
and I have come upon a wife and mother, in a public as- 
sembly, so dressed for promiscuous gaze that I have in- 
voluntarily shut my eyes with shame. 

I never saw Lydia Thompson ; but from what I have 
heard of her, have come to the conclusion that her attire 
is just as modest as that of many ladies whom I meet at 
fashionable parties. They cast up their eyes in horror at 
the name of poor Lydia Thompson. They go to see Lydia 
Thompson ! No, indeed ! How could their eyes endure 
the sight of that dreadful woman ? No less they them- 
selves offer gratis, to a promiscuous company, every even- 
ing, a sight, morally, quite as dreadful. The men, who 
pay their money to Lydia Thompson and her troupe, 
know that their dress and their burlesque, however ques- 
tionable, make at once their business and their livelihood. 
They cannot make the same excuse for their wives, their 
sisters, and their sweethearts, if they see them scaicely 
less modestly attired in some fashionable ball-room. Re- 
member this ; if you ever find yourself in such a place, 
the best men in that room, at heart, are not delighted 
with such displays. Being men, they will look at what- 
ever is presented to their gaze ; more, many will compli- 
ment and flatter the very woman, whose vanity at heart 
they pity or despise ; but it will always be with the 
mental reservation : " My wife should never dress like 
that ! " "I don't want to see my sister dancing round 
dances for hours in the arms of a man whom even I can- 
not think of without horror ; and if dances with him 

again, I'll not go to another ' German ; ' " said a young 
man to his mother, this very winter. 

This is perpetually the fact ; and it is the danger and 



268 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

the shame of the round dances. Young girls guarded, 
from babyhood, from all contact with vice, from all know- 
ledge of men as they exist, in their own world of clubs 
and dissipation, suddenly " come out " to whirl, night after 
night, and week after week, in the arms of men whose 
lightest touch is profanation. It would be long before 
it would dawn upon the girl to dream of the evil in that 
man's heart ; far longer to learn the evil of his life ; yet 
no less, to her, innocent and young, in the very associa- 
tion and contact there is unconscious pollution. There 
is a sacredness in the. very thought of the body which 
God created to be the human home of an immortal soul. 
Its very beauty should be the soul of its holiness. Every 
where in Scripture its sacredness is recognized and en- 
forced. Therein are we told that our bodies are the tem- 
ples of God. We are commanded to make them meet 
temples for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit ; and our 
very dress, in its harmony and purity, should consecrate, 
not desecrate, the beautiful home of the soul. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
INAUGURATION DAY AT WASHINGTON. 

My Own Private Opinion — Sublime Humanity in the Lump — The Climate 
Disagrees— The Little " Sons of War " Feeling Bad—" Think of the 
Babies " — Brutal Mothers — The "Boys in Blue " — " Broke their Backs and 
Skinned their Noses " — Our Heroes — Later Festivities — " Devoted to 
Art" — Scene in " the Avenue " — A Lively Time — The Mighty Drum-Major 
— West Point Warriors Criticised — Faultlessly Ridiculous — Pitilessly 
Dressed — " Taken for a Nigger " — Magnificent Display — The Oldest 
Regiment in the States — The President — The Senators — Invitation of 
the Coldstream Guards — The Strangers — Generals Sherman and Sher- 
idan — Admiral Porter — Sketches of Well-known Men — The Diplomatic 
Corps — Blacque Bey — Full Turkish Costume — Sir Edward Thornton — 
The Japanese Minister— Senator Sumner Appears — The Supreme Court 
— Senator Wilson — Cragin, Logan, and Bayard — Vice-President Colfax 
— Enter, the President — Congress Alive Again — The Valedictory — 
Taking the Oaths—" The Little Gentleman in the Big Chair "—His 
Little Speech — His Wife and Family Behind — The New President — 
Memories of Another Scene — Grand Jubilation — The Procession — The 
Curtain Falls. 

I DON'T like Inauguration day, but I hope you do,ior 
will, when I have told you what a gala day it is to 
many — to all who stay at home, and catch the splendor 
which it sheds, through lines of printer's ink. 

Surely, there is something inspiriting and uplifting in 
the sight of massed humanity, in throbbing drums and 
soaring music, in waving pennons and flashing lances, all 
laden with heroic memories, all bristling with intelligence 
and the conscious power of human freedom ; but, in our 
climate, and at the inauguration season of the year, en- 



270 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

thusiasm and patriotism demand a fearful price in nerve, 
muscle, and human endurance. If you doubt it, think 
of the West Point Cadets — those young sons of war, in- 
ured to martial training — who sank to the pavements in 
the ranks, at the last inauguration of President Grant, over- 
come, and insensible with the bitter cold which chilled and 
benumbed even the warm currents of their strong young 
hearts. Think of the babies who shuddered and cried in 
their mothers' arms, who would see the sight, if baby died ! 
No less the second inaugural procession of President 
Grant transcended, in civic and military splendor, any 
sight seen in Washington since the great review when 
the boys in blue, fresh from the victory of bloody battle- 
fields, broke their backs and skinned their noses, in the 
June sun of 1865, for the sake of shouting thousands who 
came hither to behold them. Oh what a sight was that! 
when the bronzed and haggard, and aged-in-youth faces 
of the boys before us, made our hearts weep afresh at 
the thought of the upturned faces of the boys left 
behind — some in the cruel wilderness, some in half dug 
graves on solitary hill-sides, and lonely plains — all left 
behind forever, for freedom's sake. Who that knew 
old Washington can forget it ? This is another Wash- 
ington. But here they come ! Safe from cold and wind, 
thanks to — I look up. From this window, on Fifteenth 
street, you can see Pennsylvania avenue past the Treas- 
ury building, (whose marble steps are boarded in from 
the advancing people,) to the Executive Mansion, glit- 
tering white through the leafless trees just beyond. Oppo- 
site is Lafayette square, the prettiest little park of its 
size in the United States. Above, you see the towering 
mansard of Corcoran's building, " Devoted to Art," and 



THE SIGHTS OF INAUGUKATION DAY. 271 

just this side, the lofty brown front of the Freedman's 
Savings Bank. The avenue opens before you — a broad, 
straight vista, with garlands of flags, of every nation 
and hue, flung across from roof to roof. Above glitters 
an absolutely cloudless sky, dazzlingly blue, and pitilessly 
cold. The very tree-boughs swing like crystals glittering 
and freezing in the sun. The air seems full of rushing 
fiends, or rushing locomotives running into each other 
with hideous shrieks, whichever you please (on the whole, 
I prefer locomotives, being fresher). Your imagination 
need not be Dantean to make you feel that there is a 
dreadful battle going on in the air, above you and about 
you. The imps come down and seize an old man's hat, 
and fly off with a woman's veil, and blow a little boy into 
a cellar. The bigger air-warriors, intent on bigger spoil, 
sweep down banners, swoop off with awnings, concentrate 
their forces into swirling cyclones in the middle of the 
streets, and bang away at plate-glass windows till they 
prance in their sockets. 

Before such unfriendly and tricksy foes, through the 
biting air, comes the great procession. First, a battalion 
of mounted police ; then West Point, with its band and 
drum-major. Not a sprite of the air has caught the baton 
of its drum-major. Not a sting of zero, has stiffened that 
fantastic arm as he lifts and swings the symbol of his 
foolishness. He is as inimitable in the bleak and dusty 
street as when I saw him last, on the velvet sward of 
West Point, that delicious evening in October. Some-» 
thing utterly ridiculous to look at, is refreshing, and any- 
thing more faultlessly ridiculous than the drum-major of 
West Point I never saw. 

I believe it is fashionable to find fault with West Point ; 



272 TEN YEAHS IN WASHINGTON. 

but I wouldn't give much for anybody who could see 
these boys and not admire them. They have their faults 
(their caste and their army exclusiveness sometimes reaches 
an absurd pitch) but look at them ! What faces, what 
muscle, what manhood ! Their movement is the perfect 
poetry of motion ; a hundred men stepping as one. What 
marching, and at what odds ! They are so pitilessly 
dressed ! Thousands of men come behind, warmly muf- 
fled ; but the West Point Cadets have on their new uni- 
forms, single jackets. More than one will receive through 
it the seeds of death this morning. What wonder, that 
two while standing in line sank insensible with the cold, 
not an hour ago. But, dear me ! to think that more than 
one of them should be taken for a " nigger ! " The 
colored Cadet is whiter than a dozen of his class-mates, 
and has straight hair. 

In the distance rises, wave on wave, a glittering sea of 
helmets ; bayonets flash, plumes wave, bands play ; all 
tell one story — the love of military pomp and parade, the 
pride and patriotism which brings these soldiers back to 
celebrate the second inauguration of their chief ; and at 
what cost of suffering to many of them. What cold and 
hunger, and delay on the way, and now ! what nerve and 
will it takes to march in a wind like this ! 

After West Point comes Annapolis. Petty " Middies," 
young and slender, in their suits of dark blue ! As a 
body, they are younger than the West Pointers, and 
slighter. Nor can any comparison be drawn between 
their marching, for the Middies drag their howitzers. 
They look true sons of their class ; and for intelligence, 
chivalric manners, and gentle manhood, the true officer 
of the American navy is unsurpassed. 



THE OBSERVED OF ALL OBSERVERS. A {6 

The Midshipmen are followed by the famous United 
States Marine Corps, then the Old Guard of New York 
with Dodworth's band, the Washington Light Infantry, 
the Corcoran Zouaves, the Washington Grenadiers, the St. 
Louis National Guard. The Philadelphia City Troop, in 
navy-blue jackets, tight knee-breeches, white braid trim- 
ming, high boots, bearskin helmets with silver mountings 
— the oldest regiment in the United States, two years older 
than the government, organized in 1774, and furnished 
men to every war of this country since. It was in the 
battles of Trenton, and Princeton in the Revolutionary 
War, and has in its armory a letter from General Wash- 
ington thanking the regiment for its services. 

Now, the President's mounted guard, in dark blue, yel- 
low-trimmed uniform, regulation-hat and black feathers. 
Now, the President in open barouche, drawn by four 
horses, with the Senate Committee, Senators Cragin, 
Logan and Bayard. The President looks decidedly cooler 
than usual, and less indifferent ; at least he has just lifted 
his hat, to the shouting crowd in the street, which requires 
an impulse of self-denial this morning. 

Now come the Boston National Lancers. They have 
left their milk-white steeds there, and to their chagrin, no 
doubt, are mounted on sorry Virginian roans instead, — 
old road and car horses, who act dazed and daft under 
their light unwonted burdens. The Lancers are the old- 
est cavalry regiment of Massachusetts, organized in 1836, 
under Governor Edward Everett. This dashing looking 
squadron, which has the reputation of being one of the 
most perfect military organizations of the United States, 
is dressed in scarlet cloth coats, faced with a light blue 
and trimmed with gold lace, sky-blue pants with yellow 

18 



274 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

stripes on sides, Polish dragoon cap, gold trimmings, 
flowing white feathers and aiguillette, cavalry boots with 
patent leather tops, white belts and shoulder straps ; 
red epaulettes, with blue trimmings for the privates, and 
gold for the officers, and armed with cavalry sabre and 
lance, on which is appended a small red flag. 

The Albany Burgess Corps, another famous regiment, 
led by Capt. Henry B. Beecher, son of the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher, made a splendid appearance. They are 
uniformed in scarlet coats, trimmed with white, light blue 
pants, buff stripe, and bearskin shakoes, with gold clasp 
— similar to the celebrated English Coldstream Guards. 

But we shall not reach the capitol till next week, unless 
we leave the rest of this splendid procession, — the " or- 
phans of soldiers and sailors," the burnished and flower- 
garlanded fire-engines, the brave firemen, black and white, 
and the civic societies. The strangers who rushed on to 
inauguration, swarmed the galleries till they overflowed 
as they did on Credit Mobilier days. Generals Sherman, 
and Sheridan and Admiral Porter ; the first tall and red ; 
the second, little, round, red and bullet-headed ; the third, 
tall, straight and black, are all being intently gazed at. 

The Diplomatic Corps enter the chamber by the main 
entrance, led by Blacque Bey, the dean of the Corps, a 
tall, dark, gray-haired, handsome man, wearing scarlet 
fez and full Turkish court regalia ; next, the English Min- 
ister, Sir Edward Thornton, a white-haired, ruddy-faced, 
black-eyed, shrewd-looking gentleman ; next, the Peru- 
vian Minister, Colonel Freerye, followed by the Italian 
and French Ministers, with all the representatives of for- 
eign governments, in order of seniority — over fifty min- 
isters, secretaries and attaches in full uniform, excepting 



TAKING THE OATHS. 275 

Mr. Mori, Minister from Japan, in citizen's dress. Just 
now Mr. Sumner appears, for the first time in months. 
He looks pale, and shows the traces of the acute suffering 
through which he has passed. His appearance creates a 
buzz on floor and in gallery, and many senators go over 
to him and exchange friendly greetings. Now the Su- 
preme Court appear, in their robes of office, kicking them 
high up behind, as usual, and take their seats in front of 
the Vice-President's desk. At fifteen minutes to twelve 
o'clock, Vice-President elect Wilson, escorted by Senators 
Cragin, Logan, and Bayard, comes down the centre aisle 
and takes his seat at the right of Vice-President Colfax. 

At three minutes before twelve, the President appears, 
leaning on the arm of Senator Cragin, followed by Logan 
and Bayard, and takes the seat assigned him, in front of 
the Secretary's table. A deep hush falls on the throng, 
as if something awful were about to happen. It 's a sort of 
Judgment-Day atmosphere, yet nothing more terrific fol- 
lows than the pleasant voice of Vice-President Colfax, be- 
ginning the words of his valedictory. (My ! I forgot to 
say that the dying Congress has come to life again, and 
is comfortably, and perforce quietly seated between the 
Senate and Diplomatic Corps.) Now comes the new Vice- 
President's little speech. Then the oaths of office, the 
swearing in of new senators, the proclamation of the 
President convening an extra session of the Senate, to 
begin this minute, when all start for the back door— no, 
it's the front door of the Capitol, the Supreme Court 
leading, kicking up their gowns worse than usual. 

On the eastern portico, what do we see ? Below, a 
vast mass of human beings, line on line of soldiers — cav- 
alry, artillery and infantry ; a line of battle flags at the 



276 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

base of the steps — shot-riddled, battle-torn, all shuddering 
or numb in the freezing air. Before us, a little gentle- 
man sits down in a big chair — Washington's inaugural 
chair, we are told. (Oh ! no, we're not at all sentimental.) 
A big gentleman, the Chief Justice, who has most un- 
accountably fringed out in a long grey beard and a muf- 
fling moustache, holds forth with solemnity a big Bible. 
The little gentleman kisses it — kisses these words from 
the eleventh chapter of Isaiah : 

" ' And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of 
wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the 
spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. 

" ' And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of 
the Lord ; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, 
neither reprove after the hearing of his ears.' 

Then he rises, and, with manuscript in his hands, be- 
gins to " battle with the breeze," and to read his inaugu- 
ral, which nobody hears. Behind him sits his wife and 
daughter, the ladies of the Cabinet, the Diplomatic Corps. 
What a compound of the ornamental and comfortable? 
Yet nobody is comfortable — not here. We can catch no 
word through the outbearing wind, yet know that for the 
second time Ulysses S. Grant has sworn to the oath of 
office, according to the constitution, and for four more 
years is made President of the United States. It seems 
but yesterday we saw a loftier head, a sadder face, bowed 
above that book, within one little month of its eternity ; 
when, amid the booming of cannon and the huzzas of the 
people, Abraham Lincoln for the second time was pro- 
nounced the people's President, and by the same lips which 
now utter the same words for another, a happier, a more 
fortunate man. 



THE INAUGURATION PROCESSION. 277 

Now the carnival of salute ; the Middies fire their how- 
itzers, thirty-seven guns; the Second Artillery fire twenty- 
one salvos; the Firemen ring the bells of their engines; 
ten thousand men warm their hands with hat swinging, 
and make their throats sore with shouting. Amid all, 
the multitude and the procession surge back towards the 
Executive Mansion. Between the latter and Lafayette 
square, the review, the return inarch, the military pa- 
geant culminates. The President, with lady friends, en- 
ters the pavilion built for the purpose, and the troops 
march by, encircling two solid squares; the West Point 
Cadets appear below Corcoran's building, marching down- 
ward, as the magnificent New York Regiment — a thousand 
men — just arrived after an all night's freezing delay, have 
reached Fifteenth street, marching up. The entire body 
of soldiery march and mass, till as far as the eyes can 
reach through the glittering sunshine, one only sees gleam- 
ing helmets, flashing bayonets, glancing sabers, the Cadets 
on double quick, the Middies firing their howitzers, offi- 
cers displaying fine horses and uniforms, drum-majors 
tossing their batons, bands playing, and cannon thunder- 
ing. 

Amid all these the four horses dashing before the Pres- 
idential barouche, bear the President to the Executive 
door, which now mercifully shuts them from our sight. 



CHAPTER XXVIH. 
THE NEW PRESIDENT— THE INAUGURATION BALL. 

How Sixty Thousand Dollars were Spent — Something wrong : " 'Twas ever 
Thus " — Recollection of another Festival — How " the dust " was Raised — 
A Fine Opportunity for a Few Naughty Words — Lost Jewels — The Col- 
ored Folks in a Fix— Overpowered by Numbers — Six Thousand People 
Clamoring for their Clothes ! — " Promiscuous " Property — A Magnifi- 
cent " Grab " — Weeping on Window-ledges — Left Desolate — Walking 
under Difficulties — The Exploits of Two Old Gentlemen — Horace Greeley 
Loses his Old White Hat — He says Naughty Words of Washington — 
Seeking the Lost — Still Cherished by Memory — Some People Remind 
General Chipman — " Regardless of Expense " — A Ball- Room Built of 
Wooden Laths and Muslin — A Little Too Cold — Gay Decorations — 
How " Delicate " Women can Endure the Cold — Modesty in Scanty 
Garments — The President Frozen — The " Cherubs,, Perched up Aloft," 
Refuse to Sing — On the Presidential Platform — Ladies of Distinction — 
Half-frozen Beauties — " They did not Make a Pretty Picture " — Why and 
Wherefore ? — A Protest againt " Shams " — A Stolid Tanner who Fought 
his Way. 



UNTOLD time, and trouble, and sixty thousand dol- 
lars were expended on the last inauguration ball 
building, and yet there was something the matter with 
the inaugural ball. There is always something the mat- 
ter with every inauguration ball. 

When I wish to think of a spot especially suggestive 
of torments, I think of an inauguration ball. There was 
the one before the last, held in the Treasury Building. 
The air throughout the entire building was perforated 
with a fine dust ground till you felt that you were taking 
in with every breath a myriad homoeopathic doses of des- 



THE CLOTHES OF SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE. 279 

iccated grindstone. The agonies of that ball can never 
be written. There are mortals dead in their grave be- 
cause of it. There are mortals who still curse, and swear, 
and sigh at the thought of it. There are diamonds, and 
pearls, and precious garments that are not to their owners 
because of it. The scenes in those cloak and hat rooms 
can never be forgotten by any who witnessed them. The 
colored messengers, called from their posts in the Treasury 
to do duty in these rooms, received hats and wraps with 
perfect facility, and tucked them in loop-holes as it hap- 
pened. But to give them back, each to its owner, that 
was impossible. Not half of them could read numbers, 
and those who could soon grew bewildered, overpowered, 
ill-tempered and impertinent under the hosts that ad- 
vanced upon them for cloaks and hats. 

Picture it ! Six or more thousand people clamoring 
for their clothes ! In the end they were all tumbled out 
" promiscuous " on the floor. Then came the siege ! Few 
seized their own, but many snatched other people's gar- 
ments — anything, something, to protect them from the 
pitiless morning, whose wind came down like the bite of 
death. Delicate women, too sensitive to take the prop- 
erty of others, crouched in corners, and wept on window 
ledges ; and there the daylight found them. Carriages, 
also, had fled out of the scourging blast, and the men and 
women who emerged from the marble halls, with very 
little to wear, found that they must " foot it " to their 
habitations. One gentleman walked to Capitol Hill, nearly 
two miles, in dancing pumps and bare-headed ; another 
performed the same exploit, wrapped in a lady's sontag. 

Poor Horace Greeley, after expending his wrath on the 
stairs and cursing Washington anew as a place that should 



280 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

be immediately blotted out of the universe, strode to his 
hotel hatless. The next day and the next week were 
consumed by people searching for their lost clothes, and 
General Chipman says that he still receives letters de- 
manding articles lost at that inauguration ball. 

Well, our latest brought discomfort, and discomfiture 
of another sort. Neither money, time nor labor were 
stinted in this leviathan, that still lifts up its broken and 
propped up back in Judiciary square. The building was 
350 feet long. The ball-room 300 by 100 feet. All this 
was temporary, built of light boards, lined with lighter 
muslin. You might as well have attempted to have 
warmed Pennsylvania avenue as such a place on such a 
night. Twenty-four hours before the ball the wind-devils 
went at it. If a host from the pit had received full 
power to move and dismember it, it could scarcely look 
more forlorn than it did one Monday morning. They had 
sat on its spine in one place till it curved in, punched it up 
in another till it was hunchbacked. They had inflated 
its sides till they swelled out like an inflated balloon, while 
the air was black with the tar-rags, seaming its roof, 
which flying imps were carrying up to high heaven. 

No less the official report said of the inside: "The 
mighty American Eagle spreads his wings above the Pres- 
ident's platform. He has suspended, from his pinions, 
streamers one hundred feet in length, caught up on either 
side by coats of arms. The circumference of this vast 
design is one hundred and eighty feet. The President's 
reception platform is sixty feet long, and thirty feet wide. 
Twelve pilasters support alternate gold-figured, red and 
blue stands, on which are pots of blooming flowers. The 
platform and steps are richly carpeted. In the rear of the 



DANCING IN THE COLD. 281 

balcony, are immense festoons of flags, banners, shields, 
radiating from a huge illuminated star of gas-lights." 

What were all those white and rosy walls of cambric, 
to the all-pervading polar wave that froze sailors' fingers, 
and struck West Point Cadets to the pavements, in con- 
gestive chills, at noonday? Why, they were nothing but 
an immense sieve, to strain that same polar wave through 
on to the persons of delicate (?) women, who, without 
money, and without price, for the sake of dubious admi- 
ration and commend, in promiscuous assemblies, outvie 
Lydia Thompson in paucity of attire. 

But the ball. My intention was to say, that the Presi- 
dent was so near frozen in the day-time, he was not suf- 
ficiently thawed out to appear under that spreading eagle, 
until half-past eleven o'clock, when the north wind 
swooped in from behind, and he congealed again immedi- 
ately. The President's platform was at the north end, 
and all the muslin splendors of the presidential dressing 
and waiting-room could not, and did not, warm that polar 
wave. The thousands of canary-birds perched aloft, who 
were expected to burst into simultaneous song at the 
sight of him, and to trill innumerable preludes in honor 
of Miss Nelly, instead, poor wretches, had, one and all, 
gone to bed, with their toes tucked in their feathers, and 
their bills buried in their breasts, in dumb effort to keep 
them from freezing. Not a canary-bird sang. No, they 
were as paralyzed with cold as the bipeds below. 

On the presidential platform, the President and Mrs. 
Grant sat, the central figures. A little in the rear, sat 
Mrs. Fish — stately, lovely, and serene as ever; and just 
behind her, the Secretary of State. Next, were Mrs. 
Boutwell and Miss Boutwell, and the Secretary of the 



282 • TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Treasury; then came, dream-like, Mrs. Creswell, hand- 
some Mrs. Williams, and motherly Mrs. Delano. Ellen 
Grant stood beside her mother, and Edith Fish hovered 
beside her's — both winsome and unaffected girls, though 
.the girlish grace of the latter shows, already, the fine in- 
tellectual quality of her mother. The Governor of the 
District, with his wife and daughter, and numerous other 
officials, filled the platform. 

Back of the Cabinet stood the Foreign Ministers, bereft 
of their court attire, but glittering with decorations. Tall 
Lady Thornton bent like a reed in the blast ; and Madame 
Flores, the beautiful young wife of the Minister from 
Equador, glowed in her warm rich beauty, even at zero. 
Alas! that all those wondrous tints of blue and gold, of 
royal purple and emerald, of lavender and rose, all the 
gleam of those diamonds, all the show of necks and arms, 
which was to have made the glory of this "court circle," 
alas ! that they were all held in eclipse, by layers on lay- 
ers of wrappings, till, at a little distance, the whole plat- 
form seemed to be filled with a crowd of animated mum- 
mies, set upright, whose motions were as spasmodic and 
jerky as those of Mrs. Jarley's wax works. It was very 
sensible — the only refuge from certain death — that all 
those necks and arms, diamonds, pearls, velvets and satins, 
should hide away under ermine capes, cloaks and shawls; 
but, lumped in aggregate, they did not make a pretty pic- 
ture (the wraps, I mean). Indeed, the polar wave sub- 
merged the presidential platform, and made anything but 
a picturesque success. And how unlucky, when for the 
first time in the history of inauguration balls, there was a 
"cubby" for every hat and wrap, that every man and 
woman should be obliged to keep them on. 



A "presidential platform" WHY? 283 

But why a "presidential platform/' and why a private 
presidential "supper room" at an inauguration ball? 
Both are vulgarly pretentious. Both are preposterous, 
in the representatives of a republican people, in a national 
assembly. I am not a universal leveller. I respect the 
inevitable distinctions begotten of personal taste and con- 
dition. I make this remark to add a little force to my 
protest against meretricious, and fictitious pretence and 
shams. The President, as an individual, is not under the 
slightest obligation to invite anybody that he does not 
want, to his private dinner table. But when the Presi- 
dent, as the President, comes into the presence of a pro- 
miscuous assembly of the people, through whose gift he 
holds all the honor he possesses, — a citizen uplifted by 
citizens to the chief magistracy of their government, how 
false to republican fact is the feeling that perches him 
up, and hedges him about, with a mock heroic exclusive- 
ness, as if he were a king, or demi-god, instead of a stolid 
tanner, who fought his way to place and power, conferred 
on him by a nation of stavers and fighters like himself. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE UNITED STATES TREASURY— ITS HISTORY. 

The Responsibilities and Duties of the Secretary of the Treasury — " The 
Most Remarkable Man of His Time " — Three Extraordinary Men — Ham- 
ilton Makes an Honest Proposal — How to Pay the National Debt — The 
New Secretary at Work — Laying the Foundation of Financial Opera- 
tions — The Mint at Philadelphia — A Little Personal Abuse — The Secre- 
tary Borrows Twenty Dollars — Modern Greediness — The Genius Be- 
comes a Lawyer — Burning of Becords — Hunting for Blunders and Frauds 
— The Treasury Building — Treasury Notes go off Nicely — Mr. Crawford 
Under a Cloud — He Comes out Gloriously — A Little Variety — A Vision 
of Much Money — Fidgety Times — Lighting the Mariner on His Way — 
Old Debts Raked Up — Signs of the Times — Under Lincoln — S. P. Chase 
as Secretary — The National Currency Act — Enormous Increase of the 
National Debt — Facts and Figures — The Credit of the Government Sus- 
tained — President Grant's Rule — George S. Boutwell made Secretary — 
Great Expectations — Mr. BoutwelPs Labors, Policy and Success — The 
Great and Growing Prosperity of the Nation. 

AFTER the Declaration of Independence, the first 
thing that the Continental Congress did was to 
organize a Treasury Department for the new government 
of the colonies. 

Michael Hilligas and George Clymer were appointed 
Joint-Treasurers of the United Colonies. They were to 
reside in Philadelphia, and to receive each a salary of five 
hundred dollars the first year, and to give bonds in the 
sum of one hundred thousand dollars. The second year 
their salary was raised to eight hundred dollars each. In 
a short time George Clymer was sent to Congress as a 
delegate from Pennsylvania, and Michael Hilligas re- 



THE FIBST TEEASUEEES OF THE UNITED STATES. 285 

mained Treasurer for the Colonies to the close of the 
Eevolution. 

In six months after the resignation of Mr. Clymer, a 
committee of five persons was appointed to assist him to 
superintend the small Treasury. Three months after, an 
office was created in which to keep the Treasury accounts. 
That office was an itinerant, like Congress, following it to 
whatever place it assembled. Acts were passed for the 
establishment of a National Mint. Alas ! the poor Con- 
tinentals had no precious ore to coin, and never struck 
off a dollar or cent. An Auditor General's office was 
organized, and John Gibson appointed, with an annual 
salary of one thousand and sixty-six dollars and sixty- 
seven cents. 

The office of Comptroller of the Treasury was created 
November 3, 1778, and Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., appointed, 
with a salary of four thousand dollars. Money was pain- 
fully scarce. That made it the more imperative that this 
poor little empty Treasury should have some supreme 
responsible head who, by the adroit magic of financial 
genius, should create a way to fill it, and by some way 
provide cash for the unprovided-for emergencies which 
were perpetually imminent. Thus in September, 1781, 
Congress repealed the act appointing five Commissioners, 
and in their stead appointed a single supreme " Superin- 
tendent of Finance." 

The first high functionary of the Treasury was Robert 
Morris, of Philadelphia. He had already distinguished 
himself for his remarkable financial talents as a merchant, 
and for his devoted patriotism. Besides, he was the inti- 
mate friend and confidential adviser of Washington. He 
was the man for the place and the hour. He kept the credit 



286 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

of the struggling Colonies afloat in their direst moment. 
He gave from his private fortune without stint, and added 
thereto the contributions of the infant nation. When 
even Washington was ready to give up in despair, because 
he had no money to pay his troops, and the troops were 
ready to surrender and disband from sheer misery and 
suffering, Robert Morris applied to " the purser of our 
allies, the French," and saved the perishing army and the 
struggling republic. He proved then, what has been 
proved so conspicuously since during a still greater strug- 
gle, that he who preserves the credit of his country in 
the hour of its peril is as truly a patriot as he who dies 
for her sake on the battle-field. 

Notwithstanding his benefactions, at the close of the 
Revolution, the jealousy among foremost men was so 
great, it was found to be impossible to give to one man 
the precedence and power in so responsible a place. The 
claims of the three contending sections were acknowl- 
edged by the appointment of three Commissioners : one 
from the Eastern, one from the Middle, and one from the 
Southern districts, in the persons of Samuel Osgood, 
Walter Livingston and Arthur Lee. Robert Morris be- 
came a member of the Convention which framed the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and concluded his public 
services to his country as United States Senator. 

At the end of three years, the administration of the 
three Commissioners of Finance had proved so inhar- 
monious and unsuccessful that the country was nearly 
bankrupt, and the Union of States ready to break into 
ruins, for lack of money to pay its expenses and hold it 
together. 

The Constitution of the United States went into effect 



THE NATIONAL TREASURY. 287 

March 4, 1789, and Congress went into its first session in 
the City of New York. Two subjects moved it to its 
depths at once — the impending bankruptcy of the coun- 
try, and the location of the National Capital. The pre- 
vention of the first depended upon the establishment of 
the latter. The Nation was impoverished by a long and 
harassing war, and depressed by an enormous debt which 
that war had caused. The Nation possessed no statistics 
indicating the resources of the country, and there was no 
department organized through which fiscal operations 
could be carried on. 

The strife between the Northern and Southern States, 
concerning the location of the Capital, made harmonious 
financial legislation impossible during the opening session 
of the first Congress. But the committee appointed to 
organize a system for the collection of the revenue, were 
equal to its accomplishment. After four months' delibera- 
tion, July 31, 1789, the first important act connected with 
the Treasury Department was passed, entitled "An act to 
regulate the collection of the duties imposed by law on the 
tonnage of ships or vessels, and on goods, wares and mer- 
chandise." September 2, 1789, the fundamental act es- 
tablishing the Treasury Department was enrolled as a 
whole, and passed. 

The new Department consisted of a Secretary of the 
Treasury, a Comptroller, an Auditor, a Treasurer, a Reg- 
istrar, and an assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury. 
It was decided that the settlement of all public accounts 
should be in the Treasury Department, making the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury the head of the Fiscal Department 
of the Government, placing him, however, under the au- 
thority and requirements of either House of Congress. 



288 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

He superintends the collection and disbursement of the 
revenue of the United States, from every source derived, 
except that of the Post Office. He receives the returns 
of the revenue in general, and reports to Congress all 
plans of finance, and the final results of his own official 
action, and that of his subordinates. 

The first popular candidate for the position of chief of 
the Treasury Department was Oliver Wolcott, a son of a 
signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his own 
services to his country, both under the Colonial Govern- 
ment and the Union, were acknowledged to have been 
important. Meanwhile Washington, who was more anx- 
ious to find out how he was to get money to pay the pub- 
lic debt, than to find a man to pay it, invited his intimate 
and tried friend, Robert Morris, to give him the benefit 
of his advice. In one of their interviews, the great chief 
groaned out: "What is to be done with this heavy na- 
tional debt?" "There is but one man," said the astute 
financier, " who can help you, and that man is Alexander 
Hamilton. I am glad that you have given me the oppor- 
tunity to disclose the extent of the obligation I am under 
to him." 

In ten days after the establishment of the Treasury 
Department, Alexander Hamilton was appointed its chief. 
He was still in the flower of his youth, but had already 
proved himself, not only in practical action, but in the 
rarest gifts of pure intellect, to be the most versatile and 
remarkable man of his time. Of good birth, yet, at twelve 
years of age, dependent upon his own exertions for support, 
he bore, at that tender age, the entire responsibility of a 
large shipping house. He seemed endowed with the qual- 
ity of intellect which amounts to inspiration — unerring in 



THE FIRST CHIEF OF THE TREASURY. 289 

perception, sure of success. The boy-manager of the ship- 
ping house earned his bread in the day time, and in the 
night wrote articles on commercial matters, equally re- 
markable for their comprehensiveness and practical knowl- 
edge. A native of St. Croix, West Indies, at fourteen he 
came to the United States ; at eighteen, entered Kings, now 
Columbia College, where he at once attracted attention 
by his brilliant essays on political subjects. At the begin- 
ning of the Revolution, he raised and took command of 
a company of artillery. The same transcendent intuition 
which made him supreme as a financier, made him re- 
markable as a soldier. In Washington's first interview 
with him, he made him his aide-de-camp, and through the 
entire Revolutionary war, he was called "the right arm " 
of the Commander-in-chief. 

At the close of the war he returned to New York, and 
stepped at once to the very front of his profession. A 
more remarkable and interesting group of men probably 
never discussed and decided the fate of a nation, than 
Washington, Morris, and Hamilton. Morris, wise, expe- 
rienced, analytic ; Washington, grave, thoughtful, far-see- 
ing, slow to invent, but ready to comprehend, and quick 
to follow the counsel which his judgment approved ; 
Hamilton, young, impetuous, impassioned, prophetic, yet 
practical; in comprehension and gifts of creation, the su- 
preme of the three. Never was a nation more blessed 
than this, in the united quality of the men who decided 
its financial destiny. 

The first official act of Hamilton, as Secretary of the 
Treasury, was to recommend that the domestic and for- 
eign war debt be paid, dollar for dollar. When the paper 

containing this recommendation was read before Con- 
19 



290 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

gress, it thought that the new Secretary of the Treasury 
had gone mad. How was a nation of less than four mil- 
lions of people to voluntarily assume a debt of seventy- 
five millions of dollars! Hamilton thought that this ag- 
gregated debt, created for the support of the national 
cause, should be assumed by the individual States; the 
outstanding Continental money to be funded at the rate 
of one dollar in specie for each hundred in paper, and 
the whole united to make the national resources available 
for the security of the public creditors. 

The long strife in Congress over this great fundamental 
financial question is a matter of history. There appeared 
to be no national resources to meet such a demand. 
There was not money enough in the Treasury to pay cur- 
rent expenses, to say nothing of paying a debt of tens of 
millions. Probably no body of legislators in the world 
ever represented wisdom, statesmanship, pertinacity of 
opinion so tried in the fiery crucible of war, poverty and 
suffering, as did this first Congress ; yet it was left to the 
untried minister of finance of thirty-three to save the na- 
tional credit against mighty odds, and to foresee and to 
foretell the future resources of a vast, consolidated people. 
This inspiration of enthusiasm and faith, combined with 
practical administrative force, and a broad financial policy, 
averted the horrors of national bankruptcy, preserved the 
credit of the government, and gave to the sufferings of 
Valley Forge and the surrender at Yorktown their final 
fruition. 

The young financier, bearing his burden alone, seemed 
to hold in himself the guarantee of future triumph. He 
gave to the most despairing a security of success when 
they remembered that, at the age of nineteen, this same 



SAVED FROM BANKRUPTCY. 291 

young prophet and patriot was the "right hand" of 
Washington. 

The long struggle ended in the adoption of Hamilton's 
great financial scheme of funding the domestic debt. 

When the government was removed to Philadelphia, 
the Treasury was established in a plain building in Arch 
street, two doors east from Sixth. Here Morris, Hamil- 
ton and Washington were united in the closest bonds of 
personal friendship. Then followed, in rapid succession, 
those great state-papers on finance from Hamilton, whose 
embodiment into laws fixed the duties on all foreign pro- 
ductions, and taxed with just distinction the home luxuries 
and necessities of life. From these were evolved in 
gradual development the entire system of the Treasury 
Department of the United States. Time has proved how 
perfect were the plans which sprang without precedent 
from the brain of Alexander Hamilton. 

First, from his suggestions came the act which established 
the routine by which customs were to be collected. Then 
came the acts for the levying of taxes and the accumula- 
tion of the revenue. Then the imposition on ships and 
our commercial marine, foreign and domestic. Next, a 
bank was established for the depository of collected funds, 
and their distribution throughout the country. Then was 
needed the crown of the grand financial structure — a 
legalized institution for the coinage of gold and silver. 
To accomplish this great design, Hamilton recommended 
for the adoption of Congress the establishment of a mint 
for the purposes of national coinage, and the act was 
passed April 2, 1792, fixing the establishment at the 
then seat of government, Philadelphia, from whence, 
through later legislation, it has never been transferred. 



292 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

While consuming himself for his country, Hamilton was 
harassed by the abuse of personal and political enemies, 
and suffering for the adequate means to support his 
family. While building up the financial system which 
was to redeem his country, the state of his own finances 
may be judged by the following letter from him to a per- 
sonal friend, dated September 30, 1791 : 

" Dear Sir : — If you can conveniently let me have twenty 
dollars for a few days, send it by bearer. A. H." 

The amount of personal toil he performed for the gov- 
ernment was enormous. Talleyrand, who was at this time 
a refugee in Philadelphia, after his return to France, spoke 
with admiring enthusiasm of the young American patriot. 
In speaking of his experience in America, he once said : 

" I have seen in that country one of the wonders of the 
world — a man, who has made the future of the Nation, laboring 
all night to support his family." 

Nobody believes that any servant of his country should 
be compelled to this, to-day, yet had not long-sufficed sel- 
fishness made them insensible to it, the over-greedy legis- 
lator of to-day might learn from the example of Alexander 
Hamilton a salutary lesson. 

After six years of personal service in the Treasury, 
amid personal and political opposition, greater than has 
ever assailed any one statesman ; after seeing his financial 
system a part of the governmental policy of his country, 
Hamilton resigned his office, and resumed the practice of 
law in the city of New York. 

Established in that day of small things, in human judg- 
ment it seems impossible that the brain of one man could 



SIX TEAES IN THE TREASUKY. 293 

have devised a monetary system that would anticipate all 
the varied, conflicting and unexpected demands of a 
country as large and swiftly developed as ours. Yet, 
with slight modifications, the system of Hamilton has 
met all exigencies, saved the national credit, and assured 
the national prosperity through the deepest trials. It 
paid the national debt of the Kevolution, and of 1812, 
and in the War of the Rebellion, when the governmental 
expenses of a single day were more than the national in- 
come for a whole year in Hamilton's time, the foresight 
and genius of this man of thirty-three had suggested ways 
for the vast accumulation and disbursement. Personally, 
Hamilton was under middle size, slight, well-proportioned, 
erect and graceful. His complexion was white and pink, 
his features mobile, his expression vivacious, his voice 
musical, his manner cordial, his entire appearance attract- 
ive and refined. 

Alexander Hamilton was succeeded by Oliver Wolcott, 
Jr., as Secretary of the Treasury. The great act of Mr. 
Wolcott's administration was the revision and completion 
of the laws relative to the collection of the revenue. He 
carried out, through his administration, the great funda- 
mental principles of national finance established by Ham- 
ilton, and was re-appointed by John Adams. 

When, in 1800, the Treasury Department performed its 
six days' journey from Philadelphia to Washington, it went 
into a plain, three-story building, facing Fifteenth street, 
erected for the Treasury. It was near the unfinished 
White House, and, like all the first Federal buildings, plain 
and small. It was so small, when first taken possession of, 
that it did not even afford sufficient room for the clerical 
force, then fifty in number. Its cramped space made it 



294 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

necessary to deposit all the official records brought from 
Philadelphia in a house known as Sears' store, and the 
records, which would now be invaluable, were all consumed. 

The first official act of the Treasury Department of 
national interest, dated at the national capital, directed 
that the Secretary should make an annual report to Con- 
gress of the state of the finances of the nation, contain- 
ing estimates of the public revenue and expenditure, as 
well as plans for improving and increasing the revenues. 
Hamilton had done this voluntarily, and his example, of 
a Cabinet officer making communications with Congress, 
was now made imperative by the action of law. May 10, 
1800, Samuel Dexter, another signer of the Declaration 
of Independence, was appointed Secretary of the Treas- 
ury in place of Oliver Wolcott. On the election of Jef- 
ferson, the foe of the Hamiltonian financial policy, the 
Washingtonian era of the Federal Government ended, 
and Mr. Dexter found himself out of harmony with the 
Government. After the lapse of a year, President Jef- 
ferson set the precedent of removal, and, January 26, 
1802, appointed Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treas- 
ury. 

Albert Gallatin was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 
1761. After receiving a liberal education, he came to 
this country at the age of eighteen. He became a tutor 
in Harvard College, but removing to Philadelphia, .then 
the national capital, rose so high in public esteem that in 
1790, at the age of thirty, he was elected to Congress, and 
afterwards to the Senate. In this body, his reports on 
matters of finance attracted universal attention, and, as a 
result, he was made Secretary of the Treasury of the 
United States. President Jefferson, on handing him his 



SEARCHING FOB HAMILTON'S BLUNDEBS. 295 

commission, said : " Mr. Gallatin, your most important 
duty will be to examine the accounts, and all the records 
of your department, in order to discover the blunders and 
frauds of Hamilton, and to ascertain what changes will 
be required in the system. This is a most important 
duty, and will require all your industry and acuteness. 
To do it thoroughly, you may employ whatever extra ser- 
vice you require." 

Gallatin was an ardent partisan of the President, and 
declares, himself, that he undertook his task of exposing 
Hamilton, and bringing his lofty head low, with great zest 
and thoroughness. But his hunt for " blunders " and 
venality merged soon into a labor of love. Upon his just 
and comprehensive mind, Hamilton's perfect system, day 
by day, revealed itself. By the time he had mastered its 
details, and measured its completeness, he was filled with 
admiration. " In the honest enthusiasm of a truly great 
mind he went to Mr. Jefferson and said : i Mr. President, 
I have, as you directed, made a thorough examination of 
the books, accounts and correspondence of my depart- 
ment, from its commencement. I have found,' said the 
conscientious Secretary, 'the most perfect system ever 
formed. Any change under it would injure it.' Hamil- 
ton made no blunders, committed no frauds; he did 
nothing wrong." 

Albert Gallatin marked his administration by a series 
of reports regarding the best method of canceling the na- 
tional debt, the proper policy of disposing of the public 
lands, and the legality and necessity of establishing a 
national bank. Thus, contrary to his original intention, 
he associated himself with Morris and Hamilton as one of 
the three founders of the financial policy of the nation. 



296 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

By the year 1804, the business of the Treasury had so 
increased, that an effort was made toward the erection of 
a building, to become the especial depository of the records. 
An idea may be given of the demands of the infant govern- 
ment and its notions of economy, in the facts that this 
vaunted fire-proof public building is much smaller than 
an unpretentious private dwelling of the present time, 
and that it cost less than the sum of twelve thousand 
dollars. 

Mr. Madison, on his accession to the Presidency, re- 
tained Mr. Gallatin at the head of the Treasury. 

On March 1, 1809, an act of Congress directed that all 
warrants drawn on the Treasury by the Secretaries of the 
different executive departments, should designate the ap- 
propriation to which they were charged. 

June 18, 1812, war was declared, and Congress was 
convened in special session, to consider the necessities of 
the Treasury. Out of the legislation which followed, 
came our present internal revenue laws. Mr. Gallatin, af- 
ter having held his office longer than any of his predeces- 
sors, resigned, and went on a foreign mission. A period 
of extreme money depression succeeded his resignation. 
August 24, 1814, the British troops entered Washington, 
and, with the Capitol and other public buildings, burned 
the Treasury. The business of the Treasury, for a con- 
siderable time afterwards, was carried on in what was 
known as "the Seven Buildings," in the western part of 
the city. 

George N. Campbell, of Tennessee, Mr. Gallatin's suc- 
cessor, attempted to negotiate a loan of twenty-five mil- 
lions of dollars, but failed, and resigned his office. The 
national credit was at its lowest ebb. 



THE MAN AND THE HOUE. 297 

When the need of a great man is absolute, Providence 
usually has one ready for the emergency. He appeared 
at this crisis, in the person of Alexander J. Dallas, of 
Pennsylvania. On entering upon his office, as head of the 
Treasury, he replied to the request of Congress, that he 
should suggest ways for the restoration of the public 
credit, in one of the most powerful documents extant in 
the archives of the Treasury. Mr. Dallas so inspired the 
faith of the capitalists of the country, that the national 
credit was at once restored. " The Treasury notes, issued 
on the universal opinion that they would be a drug in the 
market, rose to a premium." 

Mr. Monroe made W. H. Crawford, of Georgia, Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. Under him, the routine of the 
Department was improved by the appointment of a sec- 
ond Comptroller and four additional Auditors. Charges 
of malfeasance were brought against him toward the close 
of his term of office. They were examined by a com- 
mittee consisting of John Kandolph, Edward Livingston, 
and Daniel Webster, who pronounced the charges false. 
President John Quincy Adams recalled Richard Rush, of 
Pennsylvania, then Minister to England, and made him 
Secretary of the Treasury. 

Under Andrew Jackson's Presidency, the conservative 
management of the Treasury Department changed into 
"the anti-bank period." His administration was marked 
by five different Secretaries, and a prevailing state of 
excitement. The first Secretary of the Treasury, under 
Jackson, was Samuel D. Ingham, of Pennsylvania, whose 
trust ended in a violent breakinorup of the Cabinet. He 
was succeeded by William J. Detnre, of Pennsylvania, who 
refused to remove the national deposits from the United 



298 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

States Bank, and was dethroned by Roger B. Taney, of 
Maryland. The Senate refused to confirm his appoint- 
ment, and Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, was in- 
stalled in the office, holding it to the end of Jackson's 
administration. 

April 1, 1833, the Treasury Building was for the third 
time destroyed by fire, and a large amount of valuable 
public documents destroyed. Afterwards, the business of 
the Department was carried on in a row of brick build- 
ings opposite Willard's Hotel. At this time the "Agent 
of the Treasury," was changed to Solicitor of the Treas- 
ury, and a sixth Auditor was created. Jackson's admin- 
istration closed with an "apparent plethora of money 
among the people, and the glorious consummation of pay- 
ing off the national debt." 

Mr. Woodbury continued at the head of the Treasury, 
under President Van Buren. It was his fate to be its 
director " in the times of unparalleled plenty, speculation 
and extravagance, and two years afterwards, to witness a 
pecuniary revulsion that had no precedent in financial 
history." In 1837, financial ruin dismayed the Nation. 
Congress was convened by special proclamation, to devise 
ways and means to relieve the people. Specie payments 
were suspended, and all business involved in apparent 
ruin. Binding laws were passed, divorcing the Govern- 
ment from all banking institutions, and a new policy was 
created for the control of our national finances. 

Under Presidents Harrison and Tyler there were five 
Secretaries of the Treasury : Thomas Ewing, of Ohio ; 
Walter Howard, of Pennsylvania; John C. Spencer, of 
New York, and George M. BcblcT of Kentucky. Presi- 
dent Polk made Robert J. Walker the head of the Treas- 



-* 0M< 



THE APOSTLE OF FEEE-TRADE. 299 

ury. He was known as "the apostle of free trade." His 
administration was marked by the introduction of the pres- 
ent warehousing system, based upon English precedent; by 
his reciprocity system between Canada and the United 
States abolishing all customs and imports, and the establish- 
ment of an "Interior Department" upon the old over- 
grown Land Office, with a Cabinet officer to administer its 
affairs, under the title of Secretary of the Interior. 

The Secretary of the Treasury, under President Taylor, 
was William M. Meredith, of Pennsylvania; who was suc- 
ceeded, under President Fillmore, by Thomas Corwin, of 
Ohio. Secretary Corwin established the present light- 
house department and wrote the instructions regarding 
light-vessels, beacons and buoys. This beneficent legisla- 
tion gave over six hundred lights to protect the hitherto 
neglected mariner on his way. 

The Chief of the Treasury under President Pierce, was 
James Guthrie, of Kentucky. He is remembered as a 
strict and efficient officer, carrying out in minutiae, the 
duties and laws of the department. He discovered out- 
standing balances against the Treasury, which, if collected, 
would more than pay the national debt. Of this sum 
he collected hundreds of millions into the Treasury, and 
raised the standard of efficiency in the Treasury service 
by demanding monthly, instead of quarterly reports, 
from all its employes. 

Three Secretaries of the Treasury served under James 
Buchanan — Howell Cobb, of Georgia; Philip F. Thomas, 
of Maryland; and John A. Dix, of New York. A mone- 
tary crisis, almost as severe as that of 1837, marked this 
administration. The throes of Secession shook the Union 
to its foundation, and the Secretaries of the Treasury, 



300 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

like all other public servants, were occupied with the 
"signs of the times," the swiftly advancing portents of 
revolution, more than with the mere financial duties of 
the public Treasury. 

Abraham Lincoln began his troubled administration by 
the appointment of Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, as Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. Never was man asked to help steer 
the ship of state through more overwhelming breakers. 
With the dissolution of the Union imminent, the national 
debt had increased to three times the amount it was at 
the close of the previous administration. The number 
of clerks which, in 1861, was three hundred and eighty- 
three, in 1864 was two thousand. Such a demand was 
without precedent, and arose from the immense labor of 
examining accounts, and of preparing and supervising 
the national currency and securities. 

The first important measure of Mr. Chase's administra- 
tion was the "Internal Revenue Act," which, in four 
years, increased the income of the Government from 
forty-one millions to three hundred and nine millions. 
Next came the great "National Currency Act," which, 
though severely criticised, and probably not free from de- 
fects, nevertheless established a paper currency of equal 
value in every part of the Union, and was, at least, in 
keeping with the principles of our Government, and freer 
from chances of corruption and abuse than any other 
system yet adopted. It met the awful demand of the 
hour, and offered the guarantee of redemption, rather 
than of loss and ruin. 

In a single month, the tax upon the income of the 
Treasury became stupendous. In one clay, it paid out for 
quartermasters' stores alone, forty-six millions of dollars— 



"VAST INCREASE OF THE NATIONAL DEBT. 301 

more than were needed to support the entire National 
Government during the first year of "Washington's ad- 
ministration. In four years, the public debt, from ninety 
millions, had grown to be two thousand six hundred mil- 
lions — yet under this mighty demand, with two millions 
of its sons withdrawn from productive labor, the exports 
of the country were double what they had ever been be- 
fore, and the credit of the Government of the United 
States day by day increased. 

When Mr. Chase was appointed Chief Justice by Mr. 
Lincoln, his high seat in the Treasury was taken by Hon. 
William Pitt Fessenden, whose brief career as Secretary 
of the Treasury was marked by a single State paper of 
great ability. He was succeeded by Hugh McCulloch, of 
Indiana, who dispensed the duties of his office creditably 
till the close of Johnson's administration. 

President Grant, upon his accession to the Presidency, 
chose George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, to be Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. Mr. Boutwell had already served 
as Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and now on him 
devolved the huge task of reducing the high impost and 
revenue tax created by the war debt, and borne as a 
mighty burden by the people. He had to lighten the 
load on the people's shoulders, and yet keep the national 
tax high enough to meet the interest, and reduce the 
amount of the national debt — in fine, he was expected to 
relieve the Nation, and to pay the national debt at the 
same time. A more conflicting demand never rested on 
a Financial Minister. How ably he met it, the "monthly 
statement" of the perpetual ebb of the war debt, with 
the constant legislation to reduce all revenue taxation to 
the luxuries of life, were ample proof. 



302 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

Before the election of Mr. Boutwell, as United States 
Senator from Massachusetts, to succeed Vice President 
Henry Wilson, the President appointed Judge Richardson, 
Acting Assistant Secretary, to be Secretary of the Treas- 
ury. Judge Richardson stepped from comparative ob- 
scurity, and an opposite sphere of labor, to his present 
high official position. There are many who challenge 
his claim to it, and his fitness for it. Time may prove 
one, and disprove the other. As Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, his official record is yet to be made — until his admin- 
istration has been marked by an act of national import- 
ance, it is too early to pronounce a verdict. 

In the statistics of the Treasury Department, we read 
the marvellous financial history of our country. In them 
we trace the material progress of the Nation from its be- 
ginning. In the accounts current business of the country, 
we learn that in the years 1793, '94, '95, '96, the Nation 
imported productions valued at one hundred and seventy- 
four millions of dollars. In the years 1866, '67, '68, '69, 
the United States exported values to the amount of nine- 
teen hundred millions. The value between these sums 
marks the growth of population, territory, and material 
resources in the space of seventy years — surely, a narrow 
span in the life of a nation ! 



CHAPTER XXX. 

INSIDE THE TREASURY— THE HISTORY OF A DOLLAR. 

A Washington Tradition — "Old Hickory" Erects his Cane — "Put the 
Building Right Here " — Treasury Corner-Stone Laid — Robert Mills' Dis- 
colored Colonnade — Where " Privileged Mortals" Work — A Very Costly 
Building — Rapid Extension of Business — Splendid Situation of the 
Building — The Workers Within — The Government Takes a Holiday — 
The Business of Three Thousand People — The Mysteries of the Treasury 
— Inside the Rooms — Mary Harris's Revenge — The "Drones" in the 
Hive — Making Love in Office Hours — Flirtations in Public — A Vast Ref- 
uge for the Unfortunate — Two Classes of Employes — A List of Miserable 
Sinners — A Pitiful Ancient Dame — A Protkgi of President Lincoln — 
Women's Work in the Treasury — The Bureau of Printing and Engrav- 
ing — A very Hot Precinct — Rendering a Strict Account — Not a Cent 
Missing — The "Chief's" Report— Dealing in Big Figures — The Story 
of a Paper Dollar — In the Upper Floor — The Busy Workers — Night 
Work— Where the Paper is Made— The "Localized Blue Fibre"— The 
Obstacle to the Counterfeiter — The Automatic Register — Keeping 
Watch — The Counters and Examiners — Supplying the Bank Note Com- 
panies — "The American" and "The National" — An Armed Escort — 
No Incomplete Notes Possible — Varieties of Printing — The Contract 
■with Adams' Express — Printing the Notes and Currency — Internal Rev- 
enue Stamps — Thirty Young Ladies Count the Money — Manufacturing 
the Plates — The Engraving Division — " The Finest Engravers in the 
Country " — The Likeness of Somebody — Transferring a Portrait — " Men 
of Many Minds " — The Division of Labor — Delicate Operations — A 
Pressure of Five or Six Tons — The Plate Complete — "Re-entering" a 
Plate — An "Impression" — How Old Plates are Used up — A Close In- 
spection — Defying Imitation — The Geometric Lathe — Tracing " Lines of 
Beauty " for More than Forty Years. 

IT is one of the traditions of "Washington that Andrew 
Jackson decided the exact site of the present Treasury 
Building. 



304 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

After the third destruction by fire, in 1833, of the 
early Treasury Buildings, a great strife came up concern- 
ing the location of the new Treasury. Worn out with 
the claims of " rival factions," it is said that President 
Jackson walked out a few rods from the White House one 
morning, and thrusting his cane into the ground, ex- 
claimed : " Put the building right here ! " This ended all 
disputes, and the end of the " old hero's " cane marked 
the north-east corner of the present site of the Treasury 
of the United States. 

Though nearly approached by the patent office, the 
Treasury Building, in architectural splendor, ranks next 
to the Capitol. Its corner-stone was laid in 1834 by Levi 
Woodbury, then Secretary of the Treasury. The original 
building was designed by Robert C. Mills, whose long and 
discolored colonnade on Fifteenth street is still visible. 
It was built of the freestone brought from near Acquia 
Creek, Virginia, which has touched with premature din- 
giness too many of the Federal buildings of the Capital. 
But in the Treasury its long line of smut is lost in the 
marble splendor of the extensions. The extension of the 
building was authorized in 1835, and built from the de- 
signs of Thomas W. Walter. It embodies the most per- 
fect Grecian architecture, adapted to modern uses. It 
surrounds a hollow square, on which its inner offices look 
out on green grass and cooling fountain through the 
summer heats. Instead of cooped-up cells, the lower 
stories of the Treasury are filled with airy apartments, in 
which privileged mortals serve their country and earn 
their bread and butter. The new Treasury is built of 
gleaming granite brought from Dix Island, on the coast 
of Maine. 



THE TEEASUEY BUILDING. 305 

The walls of the extension are composed of pilasters, 
resting on a base which rises some twelve feet above the 
ground on the southern or lower side. Between the pi- 
lasters are antce or belt-courses, nobly moulded ; the facings 
of the doors and windows bear mouldings in harmony. 
The southern, western and northern fronts present mag- 
nificent porticoes. Its lofty pillars are of the Ionic order, 
and the entire building is at last surmounted by a massive 
balustrade. The south wing was completed and occupied 
in 1860. The west wing was completed in 1863 — the 
north in 1867— the whole at a cost of $6,750,000. The 
exterior is four hundred and sixty-four feet by two hun- 
dred and sixty-four feet. 

The Treasury was begun and consummated on a truly 
magnificent scale, and with the expectation that it would 
meet every demand of its own branch of the public ser- 
vice for at least a century. Like every one of the public 
buildings, it is already too small to accommodate the over- 
crowded bureaus of its own departments, several of which, 
for want of room in the Treasury Building, alreadj^ oc- 
cupy other houses in different parts of the city ; and yet 
there is not space left for those who remain. Before the 
year 1900, another Treasury Building as magnificent as the 
one now our pride, will be indispensable to the ever-increas- 
ing demand of the departments of the financial service. 

The Treasury borrowed its face from the Parthenon ; 
and, as it turns it toward the Potomac this May morning, 
it is one of the fairest sites in Washington. From the 
southern portico we look across sloping tree-shaded mead- 
ows. Beyond, we see the shimmering river, with its gir- 
dle of green, and above, " the flush and frontage of the 

hills." When flowers, and trees and soft lights shall have 
20 



306 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

taken the place of all this glare — how beautiful it will be 
to the eyes of generations to come. But even now the 
bright grass, flower-parterres and lapsing fountains are 
pleasant to behold, while the southern front of the Treasury 
is an object upon which the eyes must always rest with a 
sense of satisfaction. 

The Capitol lords it over the east, but the Treasury 
reigns over the west end. To be sure, it stands upon the 
poorest make-believe of an Acropolis, but coming along 
Pennsylvania avenue we look up to its noble facade and 
fair Ionic columns gleaming before us, as a compensation 
for the poverty of beauty in the streets which we travel. 
The western windows overlook the grounds of the presi- 
dential mansion, now gay with flowers and dazzling with 
sunshine, their trees decked in the vivid foliage of a 
southern June-time. 

How many pairs of weary human eyes look up from their 
tasks within these walls, and, without knowing it, thank 
God for this fair outlook. The breeze-blown grass, the 
fragrant winds, the lavish light of these open windows — 
to dusty lips and tired eyes which take them in — are God's 
own benedictions. Hundreds of such look up from their 
desks. Past the great fountain, tossing its diamonds be- 
low, past the sunny knolls and mimic mounds of newly- 
cut grass, above the bloom-burdened trees and all the ten- 
der verdure of early spring and summer, they see the 
windows of the presidential reception-room, whose doors, 
through all the winter months, are besieged by an army 
of office and favor seekers, but which are shut and silent 
and deserted now, while " the Government " drives among 
the hills or loiters by the sea. 

But I began to talk about the Treasury, and no matter 



INSIDE. THE TEEASUET. 307 

how I wander for ever so many pages, I must come back 
to it again. 

It is easier to comprehend the outside than the inside 
of it. One might as well try to snatch up a city and 
portray it in a sitting, as even to outline the Treasury 
of the United States in a single chapter. 

It holds a metropolis within its walls. It affords daily 
employment to over three thousand persons, and thou- 
sands more daily throng its halls. Just a glimpse into 
this vast human hive makes us long for a Dickens to 
embody the romance and reveal the mysteries of the 
Treasury. The story of the Circumlocution Office and 
the Court of Chancery pale before the revelations and un- 
dreamed of human experiences which it holds. Before you, 
behind you, and on either side stretch out the great marble 
paved halls. Out of these open numberless rooms, whose 
shut doors stare blankly, or whose half-open blinds wink 
and blink at each other through the gleaming cross lights. 

Over these doors you read significant inscriptions, such 
as First Comptroller's Office, First Auditor's Office, etc. 
You ascend the great stairs and find other halls, such as 
those below, and like them lined on each side by doors. 
Over these you read, "Loan Branch," "Redemption 
Branch," "Office of the Register," "Office of Secretary 
of the Treasury, " etc. Many of the open doors reveal to 
you large airy apartments filled with busy men and women. 
Many more show you narrow, one-winclowed apartments, 
each containing a desk, or desks, with its scribe, or scribes. 

Here we see men who have grown gray, weak-limbed 
and wizened in those rooms beside those desks. They have 
grown to be as automatic as their pens, and as narrow as 
their rooms. Here also are thousands of men in their 



308 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON". 

prime and in their youth representing every phase of 
character. In this hall, just by this door, Mary Harris 
watched for the man who had robbed and ruined her — 
and just here she shot him. Poor thing ! With her 
blighted face she is a maniac, now in the Asylum across 
the river. These halls are as thronged as Broadway, and 
their denizens' are as cosmopolitan. People of all nations 
and costumes come and go along their vast vistas. 

There are drones in this hive. These are office hours, 
yet here and there may be seen a young man and maiden 
whose in-door costume marks them as employes of the 
Treasury, loitering in the shadow of pillar or alcove, lin- 
gering by stair or doorway, saying very pleasant things to 
each other, doubtless, after the manner of young maidens 
and men. Flirting or making love in the flare of the 
public must always be a desecration of the heart's best 
sanctities. Beside, Sassafras and Sacharissa, you ought to 
be at work. It is precisely such as you who have brought 
discredit even upon the faithful and unfortunate, and some- 
times rebuke upon the whole Treasury Department. For, 
as a rule, the Treasury, like all the other departments of 
Washington, is a vast refuge for the unfortunate and the 
unsuccessful. The only exceptions are found in two clas- 
ses, viz. : those who use departmental life as the lad- 
der by which to climb to a higher round of life and ser- 
vice, and those who seek it without half fulfilling its duties, 
Ibecause too inefficient to fill any other place in the world 
well. Unpractical authors, sore-throated, pulpitless cler- 
gymen, briefless lawyers, broken down merchants, poor 
widows, orphaned daughters, and occasionally an adven- 
turer, masculine and feminine, of doubtful or bad degree, 
— all are found within the Treasury. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S PROTEGE. 309 

I remember an aged woman, with bent back and long, 
wasted fingers, sitting behind the door in the Redemption 
Bureau. Her dim eyes peered through her spectacles and 
her poor fingers trembled, as she tried to coimt the dirty, 
ragged currency. "Alas! sad eyes," I thought, "by this 
time rest from toil should have come to you." "It is pit- 
iful," I said, to the kind gentleman who reigned over the 
division, "that one so old should have to come through 
rain and snow to fulfil a daily task. Is she not too old to 
do her duty well ! " 

"No," was the answer, "she does it very well. But if 
not, she would never be removed. She is a protege of 
President Lincoln." 

But any one who fancies that even woman's work in 
the Treasury Department is a sinecure, should climb to 
the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. You may climb, 
but you cannot enter unless you hold a written "sesame" 
from the Secretary of the Treasury ; so sacred and guarded 
is this very hot precinct in which Uncle Samuel creates 
his "Almighty Dollar." The business of this Bureau is to 
engrave, print, and perfect for delivery to the United 
States Treasurer, all United States notes, Treasury checks, 
gold notes, drafts, fractional currency notes, all bonds 
and revenue stamps issued by the Government of the 
United States. 

At the close of each day, every fraction which has 
passed through the division for the last twelve hours 
must be accounted for. If a cent is missing, all the work- 
ers of the Bureau are detained until the missing fraction is 
certainly found and safely deposited in the vault of the 
Treasury. The vast monetary responsibility resting on 
the Chief of this Bureau may be judged from a statement 



310 ten yeaes in Washington. 

made, in his own report, for the fiscal year ending June 
30, 1872. 

" There has been finished and delivered to the proper officers 
of the Government by this Bureau, during the fiscal years 
ending June 30, 1870, 1871, 1872, in notes, bonds and securities, 
$2,050,141, and 331,273,955 stamps, and not a note, nor a sheet, 
nor a portion of a sheet or note has been lost to the Government." 

But I hold the " open sesame ; " so come with me and be- 
gin the story of a paper dollar. Walking through the long, 
cool corridors and the airy saloons of the lower Treasury, 
who would dream that afar up, close under its clinging 
roof, ceaseless fires burn, engines play, eager shuttles fly, 
and patient hands ply through all the nights and days to 
make the people's dollar! Here in these low, close rooms, 
these crowded halls, whose roofs press down so low that 
even a child, in many places, could not stand erect be- 
neath it, patient men and women, — weary, gray, and old, 
— and youth, with its first tints yet unbleached by the 
burning atmosphere in which it toils, — all are at work mak- 
ing the paper dollar. 

Sometimes in the dark night, down the granite colon- 
nades, athwart the great trees dimly waving in mid-air, 
across the lapsing fountains, stream long gleams of light 
shooting from the tiny loop-hole windows high up under 
the Treasury roof. They dart from the Printing Bureau of 
the Nation. While the Nation sleeps, its servants, through 
the long, still hours, go on making the people's money ! 

First, the paper ! It is all manufactured at " Glen Mills," 
near Philadelphia, by the Messrs. Wilcox, who own the 
mills, and are the patentees of the "localized blue fibre," 
made of jute, which runs through the right-hand end of 



THE STOEY OF A PAPEK DOLLAE. 311 

the fractional currency and United States notes, and on 
the back of the bonds, etc. This fiber is the obstacle to 
the counterfeiter, and can only be overcome by oiling or 
soiling the spurious paper, so that its absence cannot be 
discovered. The paper is chemically prepared, and the 
application of an acid will change the tint to one color, 
and an alkali, to another. Thus any attempt to alter the 
filling-in or denomination of the stamped check, is de- 
feated. 

A Government superintendent resides at Glen's Falls, 
who, with a corps of assistants, receives the paper from 
the contractors, counts, examines, holds it carefully guard- 
ed night and day, until delivered to the Treasury of the 
United States. To each paper-making machine is attached 
an automatic register, by which the mill-owners account 
to the Government for every square inch and sheet re- 
corded by this register, the register being locked, and the 
key held securely in the pocket of a Government officer, 
who watches the work. During its manufacture and 
storage at the mills, this paper is guarded, by day and night, 
by a regularly organized "watch." The Government Su- 
perintendent has a corps of counters and examiners un- 
der his direction, who examine and count the paper, as 
received from the makers, before it is packed away for 
shipment. The account is sent to the Department, and 
paid each day by the Secretary. 

The paper is supplied the Bank Note Companies only 
upon requisition from the Bureau at Washington. Mr. 
Bemis, the Superintendent, makes a report to the Print- 
ing Bureau, also to the Secretary of the Treasury, of all 
the paper delivered to him. The first journey made by 
this governmental infant, is to the Bank Note Companies 



312 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

— two of them, one in New York, the other in Philadel- 
phia — the American and the National — that there may 
not be any dangerous monopoly of priceless charms. It 
is borne to the depot by an armed escort, and conveyed 
on the cars by Adams' Express. The New York Com- 
pany, printing tints, must turn over to the Company print- 
ing backs, notes equivalent to the paper, and the second 
Company must similarly account to the Government for 
every incomplete note received — thus neither can possess 
itself wholly of this beloved child. One Company prints 
the tints of one denomination, and the back of the other, 
no Company executing on the same note both printings. 

The national bank notes, hitherto engraved and printed 
entirely in New York, coming only to the Government 
Printing Bureau for numbering and sealing, hereafter will 
be exclusively engraved and printed in the Treasury. 
The jute-fibred paper will also be used in their making, as 
it is in the United States notes. The face of the Treas- 
ury notes is printed in black and green, the back in green. 
The National Bank Note face dares to be printed in black, 
and its back in black and green. 

This tinted and outlined paper is conveyed to the Treas- 
ury by Adams' Express, who have the contract for carry- 
ing all the Government moneys and securities. 

When it reaches the Treasury, the work yet to be 
done by the Printing and Engraving Bureau, before the 
paper is complete as Government money, is to print the 
face upon the United States notes, and hereafter, on the 
National Bank notes, to plate-seal, to number, trim, and 
cut them into single notes; to trim, surface-seal, and cut 
into single notes the ten, fifteen, and twenty-five, frac- 
tional currency notes; to print the face of, trim, surface- 



HOW UNCLE SAM'S MONEY IS MADE. 313 

seal, and separate the fifty cent notes; trim, snrf ace-seal, 
and number the "funded loan bonds;" to trim, number, 
and surface-seal, the national bank notes ; and to print the 
faces upon all the tints for internal revenue-stamps, al- 
ready printed in New York. Besides all this work, the 
following are entirely engraved and printed in the Bu- 
reau of the Treasury: All strip-tobacco and snuff -stamps, 
stub and sheet snuff-stamps, domestic and customs cigar- 
stamps, compound, liquor-stamps, crew lists ships' regis- 
ters, brewers' permits, all the new special tax-paid stamps, 
(sixteen in number,) all miscellaneous bonds, gold notes, 
checks, drafts, etc. 

When this precious paper, with its black and green lines 
and tints, fresh from the Bank Note Companies, arrives 
at the Treasury, it is placed into the hands of thirty young 
ladies for counting, one lady counting it twice, then pass- 
ing it to another, for verification. 

The next act in the process of making a dollar, is the 
manufacture of the plates used in printing. They are 
made in the engraving division of the Bureau, under the 
supervision of Mr. Casilear, a gentleman distinguished in 
his profession, who presides over a corps of the finest en- 
gravers in the country. Their work upon the plate of 
the United States note, is the engraving of its different 
parts. First, the face which it is to bear. This is always 
noticeably a perfect likeness of the person whom it rep- 
resents. A daguerreotype or photograph is used. On the 
metallic plate of the daguerreotype the features are drawn 
lightly, the artist following accurately the lines of the 
portrait. If a photograph is used, gelatine is laid over 
it, and the picture is traced. From this outline on the 
plate, an impression is printed. This impression, by a 



314 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

chemical process, is transferred to a steel plate covered 
with wax. The outlines are then traced on steel, the 
wax removed, and the face, in outline, is then on the 
steel. The shading is then completed. 

So many phases of consummate skill are necessary to 
the completion of a single dollar note, that "many men 
of many minds" are required to perfect a single plate. 
One has a genius for landscape, another for portraits, an- 
other for animal figures. The portrait is given to one, 
the lettering to another, the ornamental work to a third, 
and on and on. These fragments of the perfect picture 
to be, are executed upon separate bits of soft steel. 
When the lines on them are completed, these different 
bits of soft steel are put into an iron box, case-hardened 
and annealed in a crucible of intense heat, then sud- 
denly cooled by dipping them in oil, which utterly hard- 
ens the soft steel. Rolls of soft steel are then prepared. 
By the application of a powerful press, the various pic- 
tures and lines, that the artists have engraved, are taken 
up by the soft steel rollers from the hard steel plate. 
The intaglio work appears on the roll, just as it after- 
wards appears on the note. 

Now, the note-face is in fragments on the surface of 
the separate rolls. Next, the rolls are hardened, and 
placed in a transfer press over a flat plate of soft steel. 
Upon this plate, the operator of the press, by applying 
the lever, can, if necessary, impose a pressure equal to 
five or six tons. This pressure transfers the fragmentary 
picture to the plate. Then its counterpart picture is set 
in exact juxtaposition. The operator uses his steady 
hand, and skilled eyes, to set like a mosaic, each fragment 
of the complete design. Then moving the roller softly, 



THE DIFFICULTIES OF A COUNTEKFEITEK. 315 

to and fro, to equalize the pressure on every part of the 
picture, he continues to do so till the plate is hardened. 
He then passes a soft roll over it, and the entire note-face 
is taken up. In turn, this roll is hardened, and the note- 
face transferred from it to a soft steel plate. This final 
plate, hardened and polished, is the plate from which the 
note is at last printed. 

After this plate has been used for thirty thousand im- 
pressions, its fading lines are restored by "re-entering" 
the plate with a roll. It is then used for thirty thousand 
impressions more. When finally "used up," these plates 
are destroyed in the presence of a mixed committee of 
Treasury officers and members of Congress. 

Look closely at the United States notes, the fractional 
currency bonds, and the most valuable revenue stamps, 
and you will see many lines involved and intricate, run- 
ning to and fro in the most marvellous manner. These 
fines defy imitation. They are the best tantalizer and de- 
tective of the most accurate counterfeiter. The most ab- 
solute imitation, made by hand, can be instantly perceived 
under a glass. These involuting lines are the work of 
the geometric lathe, an instrument whose complicated 
wheels can be set to work out any combination of curved 
lines which the human mind can possibly conceive. The 
counterfeiter, with the same lathe, would be powerless to 
produce the same complications — "he would grow gray 
in endless and useless experiments, and even with a rec- 
ord of the combination, he could not so exactly re-pro- 
duce it, that an expert could not detect the imposition." 

The geometric lathe of the Treasury of the United 
States, is worked by Mr. Tichenor, who has been a skilled 
artist in such machinery for more than thirty years. 



316 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

There are no more interesting objects in the Treasury, 
than the line of clear-eyed men who sit bent over their 
tasks, their subtle lines tracing the exquisite vignettes 
which have made the engravings of the United States 
Treasury so famous. Here is one who has been tracing 
these lines of beauty for more than forty years : his hair 
is white, but his keen, strong sight — drawing harmony, 
poetry, nature, and life, out of barest outline — remains 
undimmed. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE WORKERS IN THE TREASURY— HOW THE MONEY IS 

MADE. 

The Dollar with the Counters — In the Tubs — Getting a Wetting — Servants 
of Necessity — That Scorching Roof — Brown Paper Bonnets — Earning 
their Daily Dollar — The Work Progressing — In the Press — A State of 
Dampness — Squaring Accounts — Calling for a Thousand Sheets — Ac- 
counting for Them — Superintending the Work — The Face-printing Divis- 
ion — The United States " Sealer " — One Hundred and Thirty-five Presses 
at Work — Printing Cigar-Stamps and Gold-Notes of Many Colors — 
Presses "Flying" — Quick with Dangerous Motion — With a Begrimed 
Face— The " Help-mate" of his Toil— The Fiery Little Brazier— What 
the Man Does — The Woman's Work — The Automatic Register — An Ob- 
server Without a Soul — Our Damp Little Dollar — The Drying Room — 
The First Wrinkles — Looking Wizened and Old — Rejuvenating a Dollar 
— Underneath Two Hundred and Forty Tons — Smooth and Polished — 
Precious to the Touch — A Virgin Dollar — The ' ' Sealer " at Work 
■ — Mutilated Paper — What the Women are Paid — The Surface- Sealing Di- 
vision — Seal Printing — The Aristocratic Green Seal — The Numbering 
Division — Attended Solely by Women and Girls — Critically Examined — 
A Lady Charged with Errors — Securing Adequate Care — Dividing the 
Dollars — To Start Alone — Ladies Serene at Work — Snowy Aprons and 
Delicate Ribbons — Needling the Sheet — A Blade that Does Not Fail — 
Sorting the Notes — The Manipulation of the Ladies — The Dollar "in its 
Little Bed " — Dollar on Dollar — " Awaiting the Final Call " — The Mandate 
of Uncle Sam — Fourteen Divisions — Making up Accounts — Tracing a 
Note— A Perfect System of " Checks "—The Safeguards— The Chief 
of the Bureau. 

OMY ! that dollar ! I left far back, flying through the 
fair hands (more or less) of thirty lovely " counters/' 
to find it here, sopped in the tubs of the " wetters." 
Long trough-like tubs run down the middle of an attic- 



318 TEN YEAES IN" WASHINGTON. 

room, at whose sides the roof slopes so low, a child could 
not stand under it. Even at its apex, a slender girl beside 
her tub can scarcely stand upright. At either side of the 
long troughs are rowed maids and matrons, some fair and 
young, some old and worn, all bearing unmistakably the 
mark of the servant of necessity. So near and hot to the 
brain is the scorching roof, each woman wears upon her 
head a covering of brown paper, for protection. Who 
will say these lowly servants of the Government do not 
earn the scanty pittance of their daily dollar ? 

In the " wetting division " is received, counted, and 
" wet down," all the paper that is to be plate printed. 
Here, in different stages of progression, we see blank sheets 
wetted for first printing, and sheets in preparation for 
second, third, and even fourth printing. The counters of 
this division put every twenty sheets in the hands of the 
wetters, who place them between cloths and submerge 
them in the liquid of the tubs before them. Every 
one thousand sheets, thus wetted, are placed between 
wooden boards, under the pressure of two hundred and 
fifty pounds. In these cerements they remain for three 
or four hours, when they are taken out, the top sheets 
made to change places with the middle ones, that uni- 
form dampness may be secured. The sheets are then laid 
again between the weights, to remain till the next morn- 
ing, when they are taken out, piled up under damp cloths 
to wait the call of the plate-printers. All this systematic 
saturation is indispensable to the securing of a fine print 
impression. 

A distinct account is kept with each printer, which 
must be " all right " before he goes home. For example, 
a plate-printer calls at the wetting division for a thousand 



PRINTING "THE PEOPLE'S DOLLAR." 319 

sheets. These are given him, and charged at once on the 
books of the division. As fast as he prints his work, he 
sends it to the office of his printing division, and is credited 
with all the work that he has accomplished. At the close 
of the day, if he has any sheets left unprinted, he returns 
them to the wetting division, and is credited with them 
as sheets returned. His work performed and work re- 
turned must then be ascertained, and his account strictly 
balanced, before he can leave the Treasury. 

The wetting division is superintended by Mr. J. H. 
Lamb, who, with Mr. Ward Morgan, the head of the 
face-printing division, Mr. Edgar of the examining divis- 
ion, and Mr. Evans, the United States Sealer, have all 
been chosen to preside over their distinct divisions on 
account of their practical experience in plate-printing, 
gained by personal toil at the press itself. 

Now we come to the Face-printing Eoom of the trouble- 
some little dollar. One hundred and thirty-five presses 
are flying in this room and another • the latter printing 
the seals and tints of cigar-stamps, gold-notes, etc., in 
hues as varied as the leaves in autumn. Standing in 
this door, looking down this long, apartment, we see 
seventy-five presses flying at once. The air is quick 
with dangerous motion. Great shuttle-like fans flap 
above our heads. At every angle, presses, eager and ac- 
curate, seem ready to strike you, as well as the dollar, 
with unerring skill and execution. Beside each one 
stands a man, with face begrimed. Beside each man 
stands a woman, the helpmate of his toil. Between 
each flames a fiery little brazier, holding the gleaming 
plate to keen heat. The face printer runs his roller, wet 
■with ink over the face of the absorbing plate. A cloth 



320 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. ' 

in his hand comes swiftly after, leaving only the fine 
lines of the plate traced with ink. The ready woman 
lays the moist paper on the warm ink-lined plate. The 
printer touches the wheel, turns it, the sheet flies up. 
Lo ! at last, the beautiful new dollar ! The girl takes it 
instantly, lays it, face down, on top of its new-born breth- 
ren. Already the roller is passing again over the pol- 
ished plate, and her hands are outstretched to lay 
another sheet upon the waiting plate. In less than a 
minute another dollar is made. 

An automatic register is connected with each press; 
thus every sheet, note, or stamp printed, is recorded, and 
serves as a check on the counter and printer. The regis- 
ter is locked, and the key kept with the keeper of the 
registers, appointed by the Secretary. 

After leaving the press and being heaped a few mo- 
ments by its side, the next thing that happens to our 
damp little dollar, is to be dried. The moist sheets, 
spread upon racks, are carried to the drying room until 
the next morning. The drying process leaves the sheets 
with a rough, wrinkled surface. The little dollar comes 
forth from its first bed, looking wizened and old, and is 
immediately sent to the "pressing division" to be rejuve- 
nated. Here every thousand sheets, for six minutes, are 
subjected to a slow, steady pressure of two hundred and 
forty tons, from which every sheet issues smooth, soft, 
polished, and precious to the touch, as every soul will say 
who has been the first possessor of a virgin dollar. 

The pressing division is superintended by Mr. Eallon, 
the " Nestor " of the Bureau. Mr. Edgar, superintendent 
of the examining division, assisted by thirty young ladies, 
takes care of the face-printed work. Mr. Evans, the 



THE UNITED STATES SEALEE. 321 

United States Sealer, examines all the seal and tint 
prints. All mutilated, are carried to the counting divis- 
ion before being sent to the Secretary for destruction. 
Each printer is allowed a small percentage for unavoid- 
able mutilation. If at the end of the month his number 
of mutilated exceeds this allowance, he is obliged to pay 
for the excess. Each printer works by " the piece," and 
pays the woman who helps him — the price being regulated 
by the Bureau — one dollar per day. 

After coming forth from the hydraulic presses, softly 
polished, every exquisite line and figure embossed in 
keen relief, the United States note sheets pass to the 
surface-sealing division. The process of seal-printing is 
the same as the first, and each sheet has to go through 
the same process the second time. Under the superin- 
tendence of Mr. Gray, six "Gordon " and six "Campbell" 
presses print the beautiful pink surface-seals. Here the 
small currencies, the national bank notes, the new special 
tax-paid stamps, receive the internal revenue seal. The 
" funded loan bond " alone is stamped with the aristocratic 
green seal. 

Having been sealed, the dollar must now be numbered, 
and for that purpose passes into the numbering division, 
where it receives the last touch of printing from machines 
attended solely by women and girls. This machine works 
on the same principle as the famous paging machine. 
The numbers are set on the surface of a small wheel, and 
with every stroke of the stamp the next consecutive 
number flies up into its place ; with the same stroke, a 
small roller, taking the red ink from the plate and feed- 
ing it to the type. These machines are regulated to 
change the numbers for a whole series. Two red num- 
21 



322 TEN" TEAES IN WASHINGTON". 

bers on each bill are put on by these machines. Intense 
care is necessary in this work, to prevent mistakes, and 
each bill is critically examined to ascertain its correct- 
ness. If mistakes are discovered at once, they can be 
rectified ; but the red ink soon hardens and becomes 
indelible. If the mistake is discovered too late to correct 
it, it is charged to the lady who made it. This has been 
found to be the only way to secure adequate care on the 
part of the numberers. 

The last line of printing is received in the red number 
set at top and bottom ; all that remains for the dollar, before 
starting on its journey into the wide, wide world, is to be 
divided from its brethren, that it may start alone. Thus 
the United States note sheet is carried into the separa- 
ting and trimming room. This used to be done by scis- 
sors, and gave to women, I believe, their first work in 
the Treasury. This room is one of the largest and busi- 
est in the Bureau, and second only to the printing-room 
in interest. The wheels, straps and pulleys reaching to 
the ceiling, with which its air is perforated, give it, at 
first glance, a complicated atmosphere, till the eyes rest 
upon the many ladies sitting serenely at work below. 

This work being all clean, and some of it dainty in its 
character, the result is visible in the tasteful attire of the 
workers, whose snowy aprons and delicate ribbons are in 
direct contrast to the worn and soiled raiment of the 
weary sisterhood of the tubs, and the inky presses of 
the wetting and printing divisions. Part of the woman's 
work of this room is to needle the sheets, which must be 
done so accurately, that when hundreds together are laid 
in the cutting machine, the glittering blade will strike 
through a single line, not wavering a hair's width 



women's work in the treasury. 323 

through two hundred sheets. The room is thronged 
with those little guillotines, whose gleaming blades are in 
constant execution. Each Treasury note sheet which 
passes under them is cut into four notes at once, each 
sliding down, correctly sorted, into its own little box wait- 
ing below. Excepting the fractional currency cutters, 
all these exquisite machines are worked by ladies, who 
manipulate them with unerring accuracy. 

In this Bureau but one more thing remains for our dol- 
lar, that it should be laid " in its little bed," before it 
goes down to the Treasurer. This is speedily done, and 
its bed is a very dainty affair, — a pretty box, made in an 
adjoining room by pretty hands ; and pretty hands lay 
our dollar away; indeed dollar on dollar, so many in a 
box, which shuts them in — fair, tempting, tantalizing — out 
of sight, to await the call of the Treasurer and the mandate 
of Uncle Samuel. 

There are fourteen divisions in the Printing and En- 
graving Bureau. Yet it is its unyielding rule that not a 
sheet of paper can pass from the hands of one superinten- 
dent to his operatives without a verified count and a writ- 
ten receipt, which is made a permanent record in a book 
kept for the purpose. At the close of each day's labor, 
the operatives in every room report to its superintendent, 
before they leave the building, how much paper they 
have received, how much finished, returning the balance. 
The superintendent of each room makes a report, on a 
printed form, at the end of each day, showing the amount 
of paper received, delivered up to the morning, through 
the day, the amount delivered that day, the amount on 
hand. This report is delivered to the Chief of the Bureau 
of Engraving and Printing, and a duplicate sent to the 



324 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. 

Secretary. From these reports the Secretary compiles 
his report of the work of the entire Bureau, which must 
correspond with the report made by the Chief of the 
Bureau. 

When any given issue of notes or bonds is completed, 
the Secretary of the Treasury holds a report, which is a 
complete history of the issue through all its stages of 
growth, from beginning to end. The test of the utter 
thoroughness of this system, is that every note printed 
in this department from its beginning, if returned to 
superintendents, could be traced, through every stage, 
back to blank paper ; the books showing the date of its 
arrival, and by whom it was printed, sealed, numbered, 
separated, and delivered to the Treasurer of the United 
States. 

The system of checks used by the Bureau of Printing 
and Engraving is so perfect that it is almost impossible 
for the Government to lose a fraction from it. The paper 
is registered at the mills — every sheet accounted for. 
Every sheet manufactured is accounted for every day. 
To perfect a fraudulent issue, there would have to be a 
universal collusion between all the superintendents of all 
the divisions and all the operatives, and between the 
superintendents and operatives. Several high officers 
of the Printing Bureau are appointed by the Secretary, 
independent of the Chief of the Bureau of Printing and 
Engraving, which is another security against danger. 
These are but a part of the safeguards within which the 
United States Treasury holds its dollars. 

Mr. McCartee, the present Chief of the Bureau of 
Printing and Engraving of the United States Treasury, 
is so utterly the master of the momentous machinery 



a chief's responsibilities. 325 

which he " runs," that you cannot ask him a question 
concerning the labor in detail of his eleven hundred em- 
ployes, that he cannot answer more perfectly than the 
person doing the work. 

Beside his own practical knowledge of the business com- 
mitted to his charge in minutige, he employs only men 
trained from their youth up in the art of plate engrav- 
ing, to perform the skilled labor, or to superintend the 
divisions of this most important Governmental Bureau. 
The responsibilities and mental anxieties of its chief are 
so inexorable, that he must be at his post by a little past 
seven in the morning, and remain till five P. M. He must 
return about seven P. M., and remain until ten at night. 
Often the wheels and presses, and patient hands of this de- 
partment, go from day to day to be able to meet the en- 
ormous demand of the country upon its resources. No 
added comment is necessary to prove how honorable is 
its lowliest toil, or how indispensable to its chief are the 
highest mental and moral qualities. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE LAST DAYS OF A DOLLAR. 

The Division of Issues— Ready for the World — Starting Right — Forty Busy 
Maids and Matrons — Counting Out the Money — Human Machines — A 
Lady Counting for a Dozen Years — Fifty Thousand Notes in a Day — 
Counting Four Thousand Notes in Twenty Minutes — Travelling on Be- 
half of Uncle Sam — In Need of a Looking- Over — " Detailed " for the 
Work — What has Passed Through Some Fingers — Big Figures — Packing 
Away the Dollars — The Cash Division — The Marble Cash-Room — The 
Great Iron Vault — Where Uncle Sam Keeps His Money — Some Nice 
Little Packages — Taking it Coolly — One Hundred Millions of Dollars in 
Hand — Some Little White Bags — The Gold Taken from the Banks of 
Richmond — Anxious to Get Their Money Back — A Little Difficulty — Not 
yet " Charged " — A Distinction without a Difference — Charming Variety — 
A Nice Little Hoard — Five Hundred Millions Stored Away — The Secret 
of the Locks — The Hydraulic Elevator — Sending the Money off — How 
the Money is Transported — Begrimed, Demoralized, and Despoiled — 
Where is our Pretty Dollar? — The Redemption Division — Counting Muti- 
lated Currency — Women at Work — Sorting Old Greenbacks — Three 
Hundred Counterfeit Dollars Daily — Detecting Bad Notes — " Short," 
"Over," and "Counterfeit" — Difficulty of Counterfeiting Fresh Notes 
—Vast Amounts Sent for Redemption — Thirty-one Million Dollars in 
One Year — The Assistant Treasurer at New York — The Cancelling 
Room — The Counter's Report — The Bundle in a Box — Awkward Respon- 
sibility — " Punching " Old Dollars — They are Chopped in Two — Paying 
for Mistakes — The Funeral of the Dollar — The Burning, Fiery Furnace 
— "The Burning Committee" — What They Burn Every Other Day— 
The End of the Dollar. 

FOLLOWING our dollar, we come this soft summer 
morning to the Division of Issues. It is in the Treas- 
urer's Bureau, and here, crisp, new and ready for its ad- 
ventures, our dollar has arrived. The fate that may 



COUNTING FIFTY THOUSAND NOTES A DAT. 327 

await it out in the world, the wildest fancy cannot fore- 
tell ; but before it starts on its long pilgrimage, it must 
be again manipulated by fair fingers, to see that it starts 
" all right." 

We enter a long, light, airy room ; and here at a table 
sit forty or more maids and matrons, counting the new 
notes. Pretty maidens ! Pretty dollars ! Our dollar 
among the rest. Crinkling, fluttering, flying, the dollars ! 
Serene, silent, swift, the maidens ! That anything can 
be counted so rapidly and yet so accurately, defies belief. 
It is the marvel of this counting, that it is as infallible as 
it is flying. The fingers of forty women play the part 
of perfected machinery, the numbered notes passing 
through them with the celerity and regularity of auto- 
matic action. 

This perfection of mathematical movement is acquired 
only by long practice and by one order of intellect. 
There are persons who can never acquire this unerring 
accuracy of mind and motion combined. There is a lady 
sitting here who has been in this division since it was 
organized, in 1862, who can, upon demand, count fifty 
thousand notes in one day. As the department hours of 
work are from nine to three o'clock, and half an hour is 
taken at noon for lunch, these fifty thousand notes must 
all be counted in the space of five and a half hours. 
This is at a rate of nine thousand and ninety notes each 
hour, one hundred and fifty each minute and two and a 
half each second. The same lady will count four thou- 
sand legal tender notes in twenty minutes. These lady 
counters, with a number of their sister peers from the 
Redemption Division, perform numerous journeys for 
Uncle Samuel whenever the Treasury Offices in other 



328 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

cities need a " looking over." At such times they are 
" detailed " to go and count the Government funds there. 

Through the fingers of these ladies has passed every 
note — legal tender or fractional — which has been issued 
by the United States since the beginning of the war of 
the rebellion. Every note, ever touched or seen, with all 
the gold-notes and the millions of imperfect bonds and 
notes never put in circulation — every one has passed 
through these same deft fingers. The total value of this 
vast amount, up to July, 1872, was about two thousand 
nine hundred million dollars, more than two hundred and 
twenty- three millions of which was in postal and fractional 
currency. 

As soon as the new money is counted, it is again put 
away — the legal tenders in strong paper wrappers, the 
fractional currency in paper boxes. All are sealed, put 
on a hand-cart, and rolled off to the vaults of the cash 
division, whither we still, you and I, pursue our little 
dollar. 

Passing through the cashier's office and the superb 
Marble Cash-room (to which we will soon return), at the 
opposite end we reach one almost exclusively occupied 
by the iron vault of the United States Treasury. The 
double iron doors swing slowly back, and we stand in the 
money vault of the nation. It looks light and airy as a 
china-closet. The sealed packages, lining the shelves to 
the ceiling, are full of money. I hold a small package in 
my hand of crisp, stamped paper, tied with common 
twine, and "take it coolly" when the keeper of these 
coffers tells me that the string ties in one hundred mil- 
lions of dollars.- It doesn't seem much ! 

On the shelf of a cosy closet are piled some little 



WHEEE THE MONEY IS STORED AWAY. 329 

white bags which have done a deal of travelling. They 
hold the gold captured from Jefferson Davis's fleeing 
trains, taken from the banks of Richmond. You know 
the banks of Richmond have been very anxious to get 
their money back, and have sent numerous messengers 
after it. A small obstacle, in the shape of a fact, sepa- 
rates them from the object of their desire. This gold 
was rifled from the mint in New Orleans, and before it 
came to the banks of Richmond belonged to the Treasury 
of the United States. 

In this vault is packed away all the money not needed 
for circulation. A large portion of the money which 
lines these shelves has never been charged to the Treas- 
urer on the books of the department, therefore, techni- 
cally, is not yet money, although all ready for use. 
Every kind of note which the ingenuity of Uncle Sam 
and his servants ever devised, is here packed and guarded. 
The compartments of the safe not affording sufficient 
space, the floor is piled — and as carelessly, apparently, as 
if with potato or apple bags ; but not in fact. The value 
of every bag and package is known, and not one cent 
could be taken without being swiftly discovered and 
pursued. Piles on piles of little bags and packages! 
this is all, and yet they hold five hundred millions of 
dollars. Little bags and packages these are, all, and 
yet for them men toil, struggle, sin — sell their bodies 
and their souls! 

On each of the doors of this iron vault are two burg- 
lar-proof locks, of the most complicated construction, 
each on a combination different from the rest. But two 
or three persons know these combinations, and no per- 
son knows the combination to the locks on both doors. 



330 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Thus it is impossible that they should be fraudulently 
opened, save by collusion between two persons who know 
the combination. This is but one of the safeguards which 
the Government sets about its treasures. 

A few paces from the door of this vault is the elevator 
communicating with the room of the agent of Adams' 
Express Company, on the basement floor below. The 
motive power of this elevator is Potomac-water, from the 
water-mains. Two iron pistons, about eight inches in 
diameter, attached to the elevator platform, one on each 
side, move smoothly up and down in perpendicular iron 
cylinders. A turn of the handle admits the water into 
the cylinder beneath the pistons, which are forced up by 
the pressure, and with them the elevator. A reverse 
movement of the handle allows the water to escape from 
the cylinders, and the elevator descends. Its movements 
are noiseless, and it is managed with remarkable ease. 
Up and down, this servant, swift and silent, bears the 
moneys of the people. It is just descending, piled high 
with packages, some directed to banks, railroad and man- 
ufacturing companies. Others are addressed to assistant 
treasurers and depositors of the United States. Much is 
going to replace the old money already sent back to the 
Treasury for destruction. All will be carried away, as it 
was brought in its neophite state, by Adams' Express Com- 
pany, which is bound by contract to transact all the vast 
money transportation business of the Government. This 
contract confers mutual advantage, both on the Company 
and the Government. To the latter, because it obtains 
transportation at a much lower rate than it could other- 
wise do, paying but twenty-five cents for each thousand 
dollars transported ; while, at even this per cent, the Com- 



DETECTING COUNTEEFEITS. 331 

pany can grow rich on the monopoly of the vast money 
transportation business of the Government of the United 
States. 

Alas ! for our dollar that went forth from the paternal 
door — as many another child has done — unsullied, only to 
return at a later day from its contact with the world, be- 
grimed, demoralized, despoiled. Where is our pretty 
dollar, fresh and pure ? Every delicate line defaced, tat- 
tered, filthy, worn out — this wretched little rag, surely, 
cannot be it ! And yet it is. This is what the world's 
hard hand has made our dollar. 

We have reached the Redemption Division of the Treas- 
urer's Bureau, and stand in one of the rooms devoted to 
the counting of mutilated currency and the detection of 
counterfeits. This difficult and responsible labor of the 
public service is performed solely by women. 

In the long rooms on either side of the marble hall, on 
the north ground floor of the Treasury Building, may be 
seen one hundred and fifty women, whose deft and deli- 
cate fingers are ceaselessly busy detecting counterfeits, 
identifying, restoring, counting and registering worn-out 
currency which has come home to be "redeemed." 
Each lady sits at a table by herself, that the money com- 
mitted to her may not become mixed with that to be 
counted by any other person. 

The fractional currency sent to the Treasury for re- 
demption is usually assorted by denominations only. 
The work of assorting by issues remains to be done by 
the counters of the Treasury. As there are four distinct 
issues of most of the denominations, each of which must 
be assorted by itself, this labor alone is a vast one to the 



332 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

counters. Looking on their tables we see them heaped 
with little piles of currency, each made of a denomina- 
tion or issue different from the rest. Thus every new 
issue increases the labor of currency-redemption. With 
clear eyes and patient hand, the lady bending over this 
table takes up slowly every bill and scrutinizes it, first, 
to see if it be genuine. Over three hundred dollars in 
counterfeit notes are found in the fractional currency, 
daily. This fact alone is sufficient to make the counting 
of the Redemption Division far less rapid than that of 
the Division of Issues. 

The first thing that a lady at a redemption table does 
with her money packages is, to compare their number 
with the inventory which accompanies them. If there 
is none, she makes one. If there is a discrepancy between 
the packages and the number claimed, she refers to a clerk, 
that there may be no mistake. She then proceeds to the 
examination of a single package. After she has placed 
all the rest in a box, so that no strap or stray scrip from 
another bundle may mix with the first ; when she has scru- 
tinized and counted every note in the package, she puts 
the strap on again, marking it with her initials, the date, 
the amount, the "shorts," "overs," and "counterfeits." 
Thus she continues till every package has been counted. 
She then proceeds to assort the notes into packages, each 
containing one hundred notes, each of the same denomi- 
nation and issue, which she binds with a " brand new " 
printed strap again, marked with her initials and date. 
All the notes over even hundreds she places by them- 
selves. These in turn are given to distinct counters,/ 
whose sole business it is to make even hundreds out of 
these odd numbers. 



REDEMPTION" OF CURRENCY. 333 

The first counter then enters in a book, having a 
blank form for the purpose, printed in duplicate on one 
side of each leaf, a statement of the result of her count, 
containing the net amount found due to the owner, the 
aggregate of the " shorts," the "overs," the " counterfeits" 
discovered and the amount claimed. One of these dupli- 
cates is retained in the book as her voucher ; the other 
is attached to the letter which accompanied the money ; 
all together are handed to the clerk, who draws the 
check which is to be sent in return ; or, if new currency 
is to be sent from the cash division, the clerk writes the 
order on which it is to be forwarded. 

This is the story of but one package of mutilated 
money of the tens of thousands that are received at the 
Treasury every day. The Government has provided the 
most munificent facilities for the redemption of its cur- 
rency and the maintenance of its credit in circulation. 
To what an extent the nation avails itself of these facili- 
ties no one can realize who has never visited the Treasury. 
Regular transportation, at the expense of the Government, 
is provided by express for the redemption of all currency. 
Everything demanded of its holders is, that they should 
send it in proper amounts ; then its transportation is paid, 
and new currency sent back in its stead. This liberality 
in the Government is partly accounted for in the fact that 
fresh notes are a prevention of counterfeits. A fresh, new 
note cannot be counterfeited. Its exquisite tints and 
lines cannot be reproduced by any false hand. Only 
after its beauty has been obscured is the attempt made. 
Thus it is said that counterfeiters " soil and rumple their 
spurious notes, to give them the appearance of having 
been in circulation a long time." Thus many banks 



334 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

never sort over or pay out any fractional currency which, 
they receive, but put it into packages and send it to the 
Treasury at the close of each day's business, so that 
nothing but clean notes are ever paid over their counters. 
By doing this they are saved the immense labor of re- 
assorting old notes, and afford their applicants the happi- 
ness of always receiving new ones. 

Only the room in which the express messengers deliver 
their remittances can give any idea of the vast amounts 
sent daily to the Treasury for redemption. Here we find 
counters, tables, and the floor piled high with damaged 
money from every State in the Union. Two and three 
hundred packages are often received by express in a sin- 
gle day. The greater part of these contain postage and 
fractional currency. The Assistant Treasurer of New 
York forwards a remittance of fractional currency every 
ten or twelve days, never less than one hundred thousand 
dollars, and the amounts sent from other treasury officers 
are proportionately large. Over thirty-one million dol- 
lars in fractional currency were received -and counted 
during the last fiscal year — about one hundred thousand 
dollars for each working day. Every note in this large 
sum has to be counted, studied, assorted with all others 
of the same denomination and issue ; strapped, labelled, 
reported, delivered — all done by women. 

The last room to which the counter carries our dollar 
is the cancelling room. She has just reported to the 
chief of the Redemption Division the result of her count, 
in the following duplicate report on the broad paper 
strap which binds her bundle of soiled notes : 



HOW THE WOEK IS DONE. 



335 



Amount, $5,000 00 

From Fiftieth National Bank, New York City. 

Received July 9, 1873, by Mart Jones. 



Legal, 

Full Currency, 

Odds, 

Discounted, - 



$4,000.00 

900.00 

40.00 

- 20.00 

$4,960.00 



Counterfeit, - $20.00 

Discount, - - 5.00 

Rejected, - 5.00 

Short by Inventory, 15.00 

Short by Strap, - $45.00 

Over by Strap, - - 5.00 

Net Short, - - $40.00 



The $4,960 is immediately sent to the bank in any 
denomination of new notes requested, or if no such re- 
quest has been made, it is sent in exactly the denomina- 
tions received. And now our lady-counter proceeds to 
attend the cancelling of the notes which she has counted, 
and which the Treasury has already redeemed. A mes- 
senger carries her precious bundle in a box, but she must 
keep messenger, box, and bundle in sight; for, from the 
moment that she receives it, till she places it in the last 
cash-account clerk's hands, she is personally responsible 
for its contents. If, by any possibility, it could be spirited 
away, she would be obliged to pay for every ragged dol- 
lar out of her little stipend. 

This is a bustling sight. Messengers, each with a 
counter, are rushing in and out with their boxes full of 
strapped and labelled currency. Round a large table 
crowd many fair women, while every instant " thud ! 
thud ! " strike the precious packages. Each in turn is 
taken up by the canceller and set between the teeth of 
Uncle Sam's cancelling machine. This is fashioned out of 
two heavy horizontal steel bars, five feet in length, work- 



336 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

ing on pivots. To the shorter end of each is attached a 
punch, while the other is connected by a* lever with a 
crank, in the sub-basement below, which is propelled 
by a turbine water-wheel furnished with Potomac-water 
from one of the pipes of the building. Under its grind- 
ing " punch " our poor little dollar goes, and with it a 
hundred dollars beside. With a savage accuracy it stabs 
two holes through every one. This is done for the pur- 
pose of absolute cancellation. Then each bundle is re- 
turned to its box, the messenger picks it up, the counter 
follows, and both hasten to the cash-account clerk of the 
division, whose business it is to see if all the money re- 
ceived and delivered to the counters, has been returned 
and accounted for. Not until she sees her box of can- 
celled notes safe in the hands of this clerk, does the 
counter's personal responsibility end. 

Near the punches in the cancelling room is a ferocious- 
looking knife, set in an axle, which is consecrated to the 
purpose of cutting the cancelled bundles in two, through 
the middle of each note. These are made into packages 
of one hundred thousand dollars of fractional currency, 
and larger sums of legal tender notes ; and are sent back to 
this office to be cut asunder by this knife. The duplicate 
paper and strap which our fair counter bound about this 
bundle, is so printed as to show, upon each half, the de- 
nomination, issue and amount of the notes enclosed. 
The counter's initials and the date of counting are also 
recorded at each end, as well as a number or letter to 
identify the bundle. These sundered notes are now sent, 
one-half to counters in the Secretary's office, the other 
half to counters in the Registrar's office, where every lit- 
tle wretched rag is re-counted. This is done as a check 



THE FUNERAL OF A DOLLAR. 337 

on the Treasurer's counters, and to secure absolute accu- 
racy. If these second counters discover a "short" or a 
" counterfeit " passed over by the first fair fingers, the 
full amount is taken out of the wages of the counter 
whose initials the tell-tale package bears. 

The Treasury mills grind slowly ; but in the slow full- 
ness of time the separate " counts " of three offices — the 
Treasurer's, the Register's, the Secretary's — are finally 
reconciled. The integrity of the Government, throughout 
the whole existence of its minutest fraction, has been 
maintained and demonstrated. In the process there is 
not much left of our poor little dollar, and nothing left 
for us but to go to its funeral. Like most of us, it has 
had rather a hard time in this world of ours. Where 
has it not lived — from a palace to " a pig's stomach ;" and 
what has it not endured — from the scarlet rash to the 
small-pox — and to think that nothing remains for it now 
but to be burned ! Only through purgatorial flame can 
it be fully and finally "redeemed." 

About a quarter of a mile from the Treasury Depart- 
ment, in what is called " White Lot," stands the furnace 
which is to consume our dollar. The furnace, and the 
building in which it stands, was built expressly for this 
purpose for the sum of ten thousand dollars. The fur- 
nace is ten feet high, seven in diameter, circular and open 
at the top. With it is connected an air-blower, which is 
attached to an engine, the steam for which comes from a 
boiler some twenty rods distant. On the ground about 
lie piles of cinders — the metallic ashes of extinct dollars, 
compounded of pins, sulphur, printer's ink and dirt. 

To this furnace, filled with shavings in advance, every 
day comes " The Burning Committee," bearing the 



338 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

boxes of doomed dollars, sealed finally in the Register's 
and Secretary's Bureaus. This Committee is formed of a 
person from each of these Bureaus, with a fourth not con- 
nected with the Departments. In their presence the final 
seals are broken — the complicated locks of the furnace 
opened. Then the packages are thrown into the flames, 
each " lot " being called and checked by the Committee, 
the amount averaging about one million five hundred 
thousand dollars every other day. At the same hour 
about one hundred thousand dollars in national bank 
notes are burned at another and smaller furnace. Beside 
cancelled money, internal revenue and postage stamps, 
checks and defective new money are all consumed in this 
furnace. 

Here the three official delegates, with a few spectators, 
stand to witness the sight. Worn out, used up, gone by 
— all pass into the furnace, our dollar w T ith the rest. The 
furnace is locked, by official hands, with nine distinct 
locks. A match is set to the shavings ; the smoke of the 
sacrifice begins to ascend — the Committee depart. The 
fire and the money are left alone together for the next 
twenty-four hours. To-morrow a smutty aerolite, smoth- 
ered in ashes, will be the significant "finis" of the story 
of our dollar. It has had its day ! 



CHAPTER XXXni. 

THE GREAT CASH-ROOM— THE WATCH-DOG OF THE 

TREASURY. 

No Need for Dirty Money — The Flowers of July — Money Affairs — The 
Great Cash-Room — Its Marble Glories — A Glance Inside — The Beautiful 
Walls— A Good Deal of Very Bad Taste— Only Made of Plaster— The 
Clerks of the Cash-Room — New Money for Old — The National Treasury 
— " The Watch-Dog " of the Treasury— The Custodian of the Cash— A 
Broken-nosed Pitcher — Ink for the Autographs — His Ancient Chair — 
"The General" — " Crooked, Crotchety and Great-hearted" — "Princi- 
ples " and Pantaloons — Below the Surface — An Unpaintable Face — An 
Object of Personal Curiosity — Dick and Dolly pay the General a Visit — 
How the Thing is Done — " Pretty Thoroughly Wrought Up " — A Couple 
without any Claims — Gratified in the Very Jolliest Fashion — Getting his 
Autograph — A Specimen for the Folks at Home — Realizing a Responsi- 
bility — Where the Treasurer Sleeps — Going the Round at Night — Mak- 
ing Assurance Sure — Awakened by a Strong Impression — Sleepless — 
In the " Small Hours " — Finding the Door Open — A Careless Clerk — The 
Care of Eight Hundred Millions — On the Alert — The Secretary's Room 
— Three at the Table — Doings and Duties — The Labors of the Secretary 
and Comptrollers — The Auditors — The Solicitor's Office — The Light- 
House Board — The Coast Survey — Internal Revenue Department. 

"VTOBODY need ever carry a smutty bit of money in 
-_ li Washington. Lay down the worst looking fraction 
you ever saw, upon the marble counter of the Cash-Room, 
and a virgin piece, without blemish, will be given you in 
its stead. Do you wish ten unsoiled u ones " for that 
ragged "ten" of yours? Take it to the Cash-Room, and 
the desire of your heart will be granted in a moment. 
To do this you turn out of Pennsylvania avenue towards 



340 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

the north front of the Treasury. On either side, spread 
away broad beds of flowers. In April, their hyacinths 
sent great drifts of fragrance, blocks away ; in May, it 
was one great garden of roses, and now it has burst into 
a passion of bloom, a very carnival of color — the burning 
scarlet of the geraniums mocking the dazzling azure of 
the sky. On either side run these lavish hues. Before 
you, cooling the marble court beneath your feet, the 
great fountain tosses its spray. Toward you stretches 
the long restful shadow of the northern portico, inviting 
you to enter in. 

If your visit means "money," as it may, you pass di- 
rectly through the portico to the Cash-Room, into which 
it opens. No other room in the world as magnificent is 
devoted to such a purpose. It is seventy-two feet long, 
thirty-two feet wide, and twenty-seven feet six inches 
high. Exclusive of the upper cornice, the walls are built 
entirely of marble. Seven varieties meet and merge into 
each other, to make the harmony of its blended hues. 
From the main floor it rises through two stories of the 
building. Thus it has upper and lower windows, be- 
tween which a narrow bronze gallery runs, encircling the 
entire room. The base of the stylobate of the first story 
is black Vermont marble, the mouldings are Bardiglio 
Italian, the styles dove Vermont marble, the panels 
Sienna Italian, and the dies Tennessee. Above the stylo- 
bate, the styles are of Sienna marble. With these are 
contrasted the pale primrose tints of the Corinthian 
pilasters and a cornice of white-veined Italian marble. 
Opposite the windows, and in corresponding positions 
at the ends of the rooms, are panels of the dark-veined 
Bardiglio Italian marble, the exact size of the windows. 



THE a WATCH-DOG" OF THE TREASURY. 341 

The stylobate and the styles and pilasters of the second 
story show the same tints and variety of marbles which 
mark the first. But the panels are of Sarran Golum 
marble, from the Pyrenees. The latter is one of the 
rarest of marbles; at a distance, of a blood-red hue. 
Upon nearer inspection, it reveals undreamed-of beau- 
ties in veining and tint. 

The pilasters of the second story are not like those of 
the first story, pure — but complex. They support a cor- 
nice, not of wrought marble, as all the remainder of the 
room would promise, but of plaster of Paris, fantastically 
wrought and profusely gilded. This cornice is another 
blot of that meretricious ornamentation which in so many 
noble spaces disfigures the Capitol. 

Extending the length of the room is a costly counter, 
of various marbles, surmounted by a balustrade of mahog- 
any and plate-glass. Within this are busy the clerks of 
the Cash-Room, and over this marble counter you, as one 
of its many proprietors, may receive, for the asking, ten 
" ones " for one " ten " — new money for old. 

From this superb room of the people we pass to that 
of the Treasurer, — " the watch-dog of the Treasury," — 
the man who holds and guards the untold millions of the 
nation. It is a plain room, very. No thought of luxury, 
it is easy to see, has touched an article of its furniture, 
from his well-worn chair to the broken-nosed pitcher 
which holds the General's ink ; that ink, thick as mud 
and black as Egyptian night, out of which he constructs 
these marvellous hieroglyphics, which, on our legal-tender 
notes, has become one of the most baffling studies of the 
nation. 

" The General ! " That's his name, from the roof to 



342 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

the cellar of the vast Treasury; crooked, crotchety, great- 
hearted ; nobody swears so loud, or is so generous, or 
just, as " the General." Every afflicted soul, from the 
women, poor and old, who stand by the printing-presses 
under the scorching roof, to Mary Walker, whose devo- 
tion to " her principles," in the form of a pair of hideous 
little pantaloons, causes her justly to shedtiibs of tears, — 
all are sure of a hearing, and of redress, if possible, from 
" the General." His face is as astonishing as his signature. 
It is a Lincolnian face in this, that its best expression can 
never be transferred to a picture. In life it is rugged, 
ugly at first glance, genial at the second. The eyes 
twinkle with humor and kindness ; the wide mouth shuts 
tight with wilfulness and determination ; the whole ex- 
pression and presence of the man indicate energy, hon- 
esty, and power. 

General Spinner is an object of personal curiosity to 
all sight-seers who visit Washington. Dick and Dolly 
having puzzled their eyes for an hour, studying some fresh 
legal tender note, to discover by what process of evolu- 
tion and convolution the remarkable signature which it 
bears is fashioned, when they came to the Capital, pro- 
ceeded to the Treasury to see, not only the man who 
makes it, but how he makes it. Bluff, and even snappish 
at first approach, after a little wilful snarling, our Gen- 
eral subsides into the most amiable of mastiffs. He is an 
exception to the official class, in his hate of exclusiveness 
and his never-failing accessibility. Indeed, he would 
have far less to irritate him, if he made himself more 
unapproachable and remote. As it is, all sorts of tor- 
menting people, finding it perfectly easy to "get at 
him," do not neglect the privilege, and altogether keep 



GENERAL SPINNER'S AUTOGRAPH. 343 

him pretty thoroughly " wrought up " with their never- 
ending and perpetually conflicting woes. Dicky and 
Dolly, fresh from their farm, who ask for no " place " in 
any " division " whatever, who have no alert grievance 
grumbling for redress, who wish for nothing hut, " Please, 
sir, will you just show us how you make it — that queer 
name ? " are sure to be gratified in the very jolliest fash- 
ion. The General stabs the old pen with three points 
down into the pudding-like ink which sticks to the bot- 
tom of the broken-nosed pitcher, and proceeds to pile it 
up in ridiculous little heaps at cross angles on a bit of 
paper. The result of his " piling," which Dick and Dolly 
watch with breathless interest, is his signature, which our 
happy friends bear off in triumph to show to the " folks 
at home." " Yes, sir, the autograph of the Treasurer of 
the United States ! and we saw him make it, we did ! A 
queer lookin' man, but good as pie, I can tell you ; has a 
feelin' for folks, as if he wasn't no better than them, if 
he does take care of all the money of the United States 
Treasury, which, I tell you, is a heap ! " 

The taking care of this money is a mighty responsibil- 
ity, which General Spinner realizes to the utmost. From 
his small room in the Treasury, a door opens into a still 
smaller one. In this little room, beneath the mighty 
roof of the Treasury, the keeper of its millions sleeps. 
Before he essays to do this, twice every night the guard- 
ian of the people's treasure goes himself to the money 
vault, and, with his own hand upon their handles, assures 
himself beyond doubt that the nation's money safes are 
inviolably locked. 

In order that he may do this every night before he at- 
tempts to sleep, and that he may never be beyond call in 



344 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. 

case of accident or wrong doing, the Treasurer of the 
United States absolutely lives, by day and by night, in 
the Treasury. It is told of him that, " Once, before he 
began sleeping in the Treasury, he was awakened in the 
night by a strong impression that something was wrong 
at the Department. He lay for a long time, tossing un- 
easily upon his bed, and trying to close his eyes and con- 
vince himself that it was a mere freak of an over-taxed 
brain ; but it would not be driven away. At last, about 
two o'clock in the morning, in order to assure himself that 
his impression was at fault, he arose, hastily dressed, and 
set out for the Treasury. On his way he met a watchman 
from the Department, hastening to arouse him, with the 
information that the door of one of the vaults had just been 
found standing wide open. A careless clerk, whose duty it 
was to close and lock the door, had failed to perform his 
duty that night, and the watchman, on going his rounds, 
had discovered the neglect." 

Since that night the Treasurer has slept in the Treas- 
ury, and been night-inspector of its doors and locks 
himself. 

It is not difficult to appreciate his personal anxiety 
and consciousness of vast responsibility, when we remem- 
fber that he is the hourly keeper of at least eight hundred 
million dollars which belong to the nation. There are 
very few officers of the Government who are called to 
bring to bear upon their daily duties the ceaseless vigi- 
lance, the sacrifice of personal ease and comfort in the 
service of the State, which characterizes the honest, tire- 
less, invincible " watch-dog of the Treasury." 

The room of the Secretary of the Treasury, in the 
Treasury building, has its outlook on the eastern side 



THE SECRETARY'S ROOM. 345 

and grounds of the Executive Mansion. A wonderful 
fountain throws its million jets into the air at the foot of 
the great portico below, and another tosses its spray amid 
the green knolls opposite the President's windows. These 
grounds, swelling everywhere into gentle hills, covered 
with mossy turf, filled with winding walks, and bright- 
ened with parterres of flowers in summer months, are en- 
chanting in their beauty. 

Thus, you see, the Secretary's windows quite turn their 
backs on the noisy avenue. Their outlook is most serene. 
So is the aspect and atmosphere of the room. It is a nun 
of a room, folded in soft grays, with here and there a touch 
of blue and gold. The velvet carpet is gray ; the furniture, 
oiled black walnut, upholstered with blue cloth, each chair 
and sofa bearing " U. S." in a medallion on its back, while 
the carved window-cornices each hold in their centres the 
gilded scales of justice above the key of the Treasury. A 
full-length mirror is placed between these windows. On 
one side of the room is a book-case, in which the works 
of Webster, Calhoun, Washington, and Jefferson, are con- 
spicuous. The walls are frescoed in neutral tints, and the 
only pictures on them are chromo portraits of Lincoln and 
Grant. 

In the centre of this room, at a cloth-covered table, sits 
the Secretary of the Treasury and his assistants, besides, 
usually, a third dejected mortal, on the "anxious seat'* 
of expectancy for an office. 

The Secretary's office is charged with the general super- 
vision of the fiscal transactions of the Government, and 
of the execution of the laws concerning the commerce 
and navigation of the United States. He superintends 
the survey of the coast, the light-house establishment, 



346 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

the marine hospitals of the United States, and the con- 
struction of certain public buildings for custom-houses 
and other purposes. 

The First Comptroller's office prescribes the mode of 
keeping and rendering accounts for the civil and diplo- 
matic service, as well as the public lands, and revises and 
certifies the balances arising thereon. 

The Second Comptroller's office prescribes the mode of 
keeping and rendering the accounts of the army, navy, 
and Indian departments of the public service, and revises 
and certifies the balances arising thereon. 

The office of Commissioner of Customs prescribes the 
mode of keeping and rendering the accounts of the cus- 
toms revenue and disbursements, and for the building and 
repairing custom-houses, etc., and revises and certifies the 
balances arising thereon. 

The First Auditor's office receives and adjusts the ac- 
counts of the customs revenue and disbursements, ap- 
propriations and expenditures on account of the civil 
list and under private acts of Congress, and reports the 
balances to the Commissioner of the Customs and the 
First Comptroller, respectively, for their decision thereon. 

The Second Auditor's office receives and adjusts all 
accounts relating to the pay, clothing and recruiting of 
the army, as well as armories, arsenals, and ordnance, 
and all accounts relating to the Indian Bureau, and re- 
ports the balances to the Second Comptroller for his de- 
cision thereon. 

The Third Auditor's office adjusts all accounts for sub- 
sistence of the army, fortifications, military academy, mil- 
itary roads, and the quarter-master's department, as well 
as for pensions, claims arising from military services pre- 



WHERE THE GOVERNMENT WORKS. 347 

vious to 1816, and for horses and other property lost in 
the military service, under various acts of Congress, and 
reports the balances to the Second Comptroller for his de- 
cision thereon. 

The Fourth Auditor's office adjusts all accounts for the 
service of the Navy Department, and reports the balances 
to the Second Comptroller for his decision thereon. 

The Fifth Auditor's office adjusts all accounts for diplo- 
matic and similar services, performed under the direction 
of the State Department, and reports the balances to the 
First Comptroller for his decision thereon. 

The Sixth Auditor's office adjusts all accounts arising 
from the service of the Post-office Department. His decis- 
ions are final, unless an appeal be taken within twelve 
months to the First Comptroller. He superintends the col- 
lection of all debts due the Post-office Department, and all 
penalties and forfeitures imposed on postmasters and mail 
contractors for failing to do their duty ; he directs suits 
and legal proceedings, civil and criminal, and takes all such 
measures as may be authorized by law to enforce the 
prompt payment of moneys due to the department, in- 
structing United States attorneys, marshals, and clerks, 
on all matters relating thereto, and receives returns from 
each term of the United States courts of the condition and 
progress of such suits and legal proceedings ; has charge 
of all lands and other property assigned to the United 
States in payment of debts due the Post-office Depart- 
ment, and has power to sell and dispose of the same for 
the benefit of the United States. 

The Treasurer's office receives and keeps the moneys of 
the United States in his own office, and that of the de- 
positories created by the Act of August 6th, 1846, and 



348 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 7 

pays out the same upon warrants drawn by the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, countersigned by the First Comp- 
troller, and upon warrants drawn by the Postmaster- 
General and countersigned by the Sixth Auditor, and 
recorded by the Register. He also holds public moneys 
advanced by warrant to disbursing officers, and pays out 
the same upon their checks. 

The Registrar's office keeps the accounts of public re- 
ceipts and expenditures, receives the returns and makes 
out the official statement of commerce and navigation of 
the United States, and receives from the First Comptroller 
and Commissioner of Customs all accounts and vouchers 
decided by them, and is charged by law with their safe 
keeping. 

The Solicitor's office superintends all civil suits com- 
menced by the United States (except those arising in the 
post-office department), and instructs the United States 
attorneys, marshals and clerks in all matters relating to 
them and their results. He receives returns from each 
term of the United States courts, showing the progress 
and condition of such suits ; has charge of all lands and 
other property assigned to the United States in payment 
of debts (except those assigned in payment of debts due 
the post-office department), and has power to sell and 
dispose of the same for the benefit of the United States. 

The Light-House Board, of which the Secretary of the 
Treasury is ex-officio president, but in the deliberations of 
which he has the assistance of naval, military and scien- 
tific coadjutors. 

United States Coast Survey. The Superintendent, with 
numerous assistants, employed in the office and upon the 
survey of the coast, are under the control of this depart- 



THE INTEKNAL KE VENUE DEPAKTMENT. 349 

ment. A statement of their duties will be found in a 
future chapter. 

The new rooms of the Internal Revenue Department 
are very beautiful. They run the entire length of the 
new wing of the Treasury, looking out on the magnifi- 
cent marble court, with its central fountain below, the 
north entrance, the Presidential grounds and Pennsylva- 
nia avenue. They are covered with miles of Brussels 
carpeting, in green and gold. Their walls are set with 
elegant mirrors, hung with maps and pictures. There are 
globes, cases filled with books, cushioned furniture — all 
the accompaniments of elegant apartments, and one 
opening into the other, forming a perfect suite. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

WOMAN'S WORK IN THE DEPARTMENTS— WHAT THEY 
DO AND HOW THEY DO IT. 

Women Experts in the Treasury — General Spinner's Opinion — A Woman's 
Logic — The Gifts of Women — Their Superiority to Men — Money Burnt 
in the Chicago Fire — Cases of Valuable Rubbish — Identifying Burnt 
Greenbacks — The Treasure Saved — The Ashes of the Boston Fire — 
From the Bottom of the Mississippi — Mrs. Patterson Saves a " Pile" of 
Money — Money in the Toes of Stockings — In the Stomachs of Men and 
Beasts — From the Bodies of the Murdered and Drowned — Not Fairly 
Paid — One Hundred and Eighty Women at Work — "The Broom Brig- 
ade " — Scrubbing the Floors — The Soldier's Widow — -Stories which 
Might be Told — Meditating Suicide — The Struggle of Life — How a 
Thousand Women are Employed — Speaking of Their Characters — The 
Ill-paid Servants of the Country — Chief-Justice Taney's Daughters — Col- 
onel Albert Johnson's Daughter — A Place Where Men are Not Employed 
— Writing " for the Press " — Miss Grundy of New York — The Internal 
Revenue Bureau — " Marvels of Mechanical Beauty " — Women of Busi- 
ness Capacity — A Lady as Big as Two Books! — In a Man's Place — A 
Disgrace to the Nation — Working for Two, Paid for One — How "Re- 
trenchment " is Carried Out — In the Departments — Beaten by a Woman 
— The Post Office Department — Folding " Dead Letters " — A Woman 
who has Worked Well — " Sorrow Does Not Kill " — The Patent Office — 
The Agricultural Department — Changes Which Should be Made. 

IN several branches of the Treasury service, women 
have risen to the proficiency of experts. This is es- 
pecially true of them as rapid and accurate counters, 
as restorers of mutilated currency and as counterfeit 
detectors. 

General Spinner says: "A man will examine a note 
systematically and deduce logically, from the imperfect 

J 



WOMEN EXPERTS IN THE TREASURY. 351 

engraving, blurred vignette or indistinct signature, that it 
is counterfeit, and be wrong four cases out of ten. A 
woman picks up a note, looks at it in a desultory fashion of 
her own, and says : ' That's counterfeit.' ' Why ? ' ' Because 
it is,' she answers promptly, and she is right eleven cases out 
of twelve." Yet this almost unerring accuracy is by no 
means the result of mere instinct, or of hap-hazard chance. 
It is the sequence of subtle perception, of fine, keen vis- 
ion, and of exquisite sensitiveness of touch. 

All women do not excel as counterfeit-detectors; nor 
can all become experts as restorers and counters of cur- 
rency. But wherever a woman possesses native quick- 
ness, combined with power of concentration, with train- 
ing and experience, she in time commands an absolute 
skill in her work, which, it has been proved, it is impossi- 
ble for men to attain. Her very fineness of touch, swift- 
ness of movement, and subtlety of sight give her this ad- 
vantage. Thus when notes are defaced or charred beyond 
ordinary recognition, they are placed in the hands of 
women for identification. 

After the great Chicago fire in 1871, cases of money 
to the value of one hundred and sixty-four thousand, nine 
hundred and ninety-seven dollars and ninety-eight cents, 
were sent to the United States Treasury for identification. 
They consisted of legal tenders, National State bank and 
fractional notes, bonds, certificates and coupons, internal 
revenue and postage stamps, all so shrivelled and burned, 
that they crumbled to the touch and defied unaided eye- 
sight. All these charred treasures were placed in the 
hands of a committee of six ladies, for identification. 
What patience, practice, skill, were indispensable to the 
fulfilment of this task, it is not difficult to conjecture. 



352 TEN" TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

"After unpacking the money from the raw cotton in 
which it travelled, as jealously swathed as the most precious 
jewellery, the ladies separated each small piece with thin 
knives made for the purpose, then laying the blackened 
fragments on sheets of blotting-paper, they decided by 
close scrutiny the value, genuineness and nature of the 
note. Magnifying glasses were provided, but seldom used, 
except for the deciphering of coupon-numbers or other mi- 
nute details. The pieces were then pasted on thin paper, 
the bank-notes returned to their respective banks, and the 
United States money put in sealed envelopes and deliv- 
ered to a committee of four, who superintended the final 
burning. The amount of one million, two hundred and 
twenty-six thousand, three hundred and forty-one dollars 
and thirty-three cents was identified — over seventy-six per 
cent, of the whole." 

A year later, Boston, from the ruins of its great fire, 
gathered the ashes of its money and sent it to the United 
States Treasury, begging identification and aid in restora- 
tion. Eighty-three cases came from that city, and these 
were so carefully packed that the labor of identification 
was greatly lightened. Of the eighty-eight thousand, 
eight hundred and twelve dollars and ninety-nine cents, 
which they contained, over ninety per cent, of the whole 
was identified by the same six ladies, who saved so much to 
individuals and to the Government from the Chicago fire. 

Besides money, a large amount of checks, drafts, prom- 
issory notes, insurance policies, and other valuable papers 
were identified by these same clear eyes and patient 
hands, and restored to their owners. The entire respon- 
sibility of the whole amount rested on them. The money 
was delivered to them, when it came, and on their reports 



MONET SAVED FROM FIRE AND WATER. 353 

all remittances on it were made. It took over six months 
of constant labor to identify the money from these fires. 

The names of this committee of six are Mrs. M. J. 
Patterson, Miss Pearl, Mrs. Davis, Miss Schriner, Miss 
Wright, and Miss Powers. "Mrs. Patterson has been 
engaged for seven or eight years on what are called 
f affidavit cases' — cases where the money is too badly 
mutilated to be redeemed in the regular way, and the 
sender testifying under oath that the missing fragments 
are totally destroyed, receives whatever proportion of the 
original value allowed by the rules." 

The most noted case that she ever worked on was that 
of a paymaster's trunk that was sunk in the Mississippi, 
in the Robert Carter. After lying three years in the bot- 
tom of the river, the steamer was raised, and the money, 
soaked, rotten and obliterated, given to Mrs. Patterson 
for identification. She saved one hundred and eighty-five 
thousand out of two hundred thousand dollars, and the 
express company, which was responsible for the original 
amount, presented her with five hundred dollars, as a 
recognition of her services. 

All the money which she identifies passes from the 
hands of this lady to a committee of three — two gentle- 
men, one from the Treasurer's and one from the Regis- 
ter's office, and a lady from the Secretary's office. The 
duties of these three persons are identical. They re-count 
the money, seal it with the official seal of the three 
offices, and for so doing receive, per year, the gentlemen 
each eighteen hundred dollars, the lady twelve hundred 
dollars — one more illustration of the sort of justice be- 
tween the work of men and women, which prevails in 
the Treasury service ! 

23 



354 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

The identification and restoration of defaced and mu- 
tilated notes is a very difficult and important operation. 
From the toes of stockings, in which they have been 
washed and dissolved ; from the stomachs of animals, and 
even of men ; from the bodies of drowned and murdered 
human beings; from the holes of vice and of deadly dis- 
ease, these fragments of money, whose lines are often ut- 
terly obliterated, whose tissues emit the foulest smells, 
come to the Treasury, and are committed wholly to the 
supervision and skill of women. 

Let any just mind decide whether such labor does not 
deserve to be recognized and rewarded absolutely on its 
own merits. Such is its acknowleged value, that these 
Government experts have been allowed to go to distant 
parts of the country, to restore burnt money belonging 
to Adams' Express Company, because it was known that 
there was no one else in the land, who could perform this 
service. 

The whole basement floor of the north wing of the 
Treasury is occupied by the busy counters of mutilated 
money. Here sit one hundred and eighty women count- 
ers, restorers and detectors. Side by side, we see the faded 
and the blooming face. Here is the woman, worn and 
weary — born, more than likely, to ease and luxury — 
thankfully working to support herself and her children ; 
and at the very next table, a maiden, whose fresh youth, 
care has not yet worn out — each working with equal thank- 
fulness, to support herself, and besides, perhaps, father and 
mother, brother, sister or child. 

The time of toil, for one who must earn her living, is 
not long; indeed, the hours are fewer than the average 
hours of ordinary labor. She does not complain of them; 



THE BEUSH-AKD-BKOOM BEIGADE. 355 

she is grateful for her chance. Yet her working-day 
is as long as her brother's. Her chance, alone, is less. 
For the same hours and the same toil, her stipend is one- 
fourth smaller than his smallest. 

At three o'clock P. M., hats and shawls come down from 
their pegs, lunch-baskets come forth from their hiding- 
places, the great corridors, and porticoes, and broad streets 
are thronged with homeward-wending workers. For the 
space of half an hour, the Treasury-offices and halls seem 
deserted, and then — Lo ! the Broom Brigade ! Cobwebs, 
dust and dirt, no longer dim the granite steps, the tessel- 
lated floors, the marble surfaces of the Treasury-building, 
as they used to do, years ago. Congress has provided a 
Broom Brigade, with fifteen dollars a month, to pay each 
member — and here they come, the sweepers, the dusters 
and the scrubbers — ninety women ! 

Three years ago, was established the present efficient 
system of daily cleaning of the Treasury, exclusively un- 
der feminine control, with what perfect result, all who re- 
member the Treasury as it was, and see it as it is, can bear 
witness. 

These ninety women-workers are under the exclusive 
control of a lady custodian. The organization, supervis- 
ion, general control, payment, etc., of this small army of 
sweepers, brushers and scrubbers, all devolve on her. She 
is a fair and stately woman, wearing a crown of snow-white 
hair, her soul looking out of eyes clear and bright, yet of 
tender blue. Her face tells its own story of sorrow out- 
lived, and of deep human sympathy. Did it tell any 
other, she would not be the right woman in the right 
place. No woman who has not suffered, who is not in 
profound sympathy with every form of human poverty 



356 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

and want, could of right reign over an army of women 
toilers, sweeping, scrubbing for bread. At 4 P. M., each 
day, ninety women enter a little room on the basement 
floor of the Treasury, there to exchange their decent 
street dress for the dusty garments of toil. As they as- 
cend the broad stairs and disperse — broom, duster, or 
scrubbing-brush in hand — to make the beautiful offices 
and broad halls fresh and bright for the next coming day, 
the lady who guards and guides them all — who knows the 
history of each one — what stories she might tell ! 

Here is a little woman whose husband was killed in the 
Union army, leaving her nothing but his memory, his 
small pension, and a pair of brave hands to support her- 
self and three little ones. Here are two bright little col- 
ored girls. They are students in Howard's University, 
and come every day after school, the long way to the 
Treasury, to earn a part of the money which is to insure 
their education. Here is a young woman whose keenly 
lined, sorrowful face is a history. " Months ago she came 
to the silver-haired lady in the custodian's room, and asked 
for work of any kind. The possibility to grant her re- 
quest did not then exist, and again and again, with little 
hope, she came. At last she applied when some necessi- 
tous vacancy in the ranks of workers rendered it possible 
for the lady to assign her at once to a place of employ- 
ment ; and gladly she gave it, for the petitioner was wan 
and despairing. After work and the departure of the 
throng, she again sought the lady, to thank her on her 
knees 'for saving her life.' She said, 'I had made up my 
mind to take my life if you refused me ; I had reached the 
end of every thing.' Then followed the oft-repeated story 
— deception, desertion, desperation, and the one last strug- 



THE LABOKS OF A THOUSAND WOMEN. 357 

gle to live" — to live honestly by honest, albeit the lowliest 
toil. 

"Many a soldier's widow, struggling with smallest for- 
tune, has occasion to be thankful for the fifteen dollars 
earned here every month, although the walk and work seem 
insufferable at times. Many a soldier's orphan is sustained 
by the stroke of brush and broom, making hall and stair 
and wall brightly clean to the step and sight of coming vis- 
itors from far and near, and the same shining polish which 
some strangers may admire, on the perspected marble 
floors ancl wrought pilasters, is a source and means of 
maintenance to humble homes when a death, desertion, 
and (0 ! sadly often) drunkenness has removed the head 
and protector, and in which life means only toil and sor- 
row. Every one of these ninety women has her own story 
of trouble, and want, and endurance, which made up her 
past, and won for her, her niche in this scheme of labor." 

Near a thousand women, from the toilers of the tubs un- 
der its roof, to the Brush-and-Broom Brigade in its base- 
ment, are employed in the Treasury. Their labor ranges 
from the lowliest manual toil, to the highest intellectual 
employment. In the social scale ^they measure the entire 
gamut of society. In isolated instances, women of excep- 
tional character may still hold positions in the Treasury, 
and in so large a number, and under an unjust system of 
appointment, it would be strange if no such case could be 
found. But so powerful is the public sentiment roused 
against such appointments, it is impossible that they 
should be longer permitted, if known. The deepest 
wrong which their presence ever inflicted, was' the un- 
just suspicion which they brought upon a large body of 
intelligent, pure women. The truth is, there is not an- 



358 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

other company of women-workers in the land which num- 
bers so many ladies of high character, intelligence, culture, 
and social position. 

The country is not aware to what an extent its most 
noble public servants have died poor, nor how many of 
their wives and daughters have sought the Government 
Civil Service as the means of honorable self-support. 

Until within a short time, when the friends of their 
father raised a fund for their support, the daughters of 
Chief -Justice Taney were employed in the Treasury. The 
fair young orphan daughter of Robert J. Walker, once Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, now supports herself by service in 
the Internal Revenue. Governor Fairchild, of Wisconsin, 
found his beautiful wife, the daughter of a distinguished 
public man, occupying a desk in the Treasury. Mrs. 
Mary Johnson, daughter of Colonel Albert, who for a long 
series of years was head of the Topographical Bureau, has 
been for ten years a clerk in the Treasury. Her husband 
was Consul at Florence, where he died. Her father pass- 
ing away soon after, she found herself alone, with two 
young sons to rear and educate. She became a Govern- 
ment clerk, or, as that title is now officially denied 
to a woman, "a Government employe!' Her sons are 
growing up to honor her, one having entered the Naval 
School at Annapolis. Mrs. Tilton, sister of General Rob- 
ert Ould, is an "employe" in the Internal Revenue. The 
widow of Captain Ringgold is also there. 

The Quarter-master-General's Office, which is a division 
of the War Department, has been almost exclusively set 
apart for the widows, daughters, and sisters of officers of 
army or navy, killed or injured in the war. Almost with- 
out exception, the "employes" of this office are gentle- 



LADY-WEITEES AND THEIR LABORS. 359 

women. It is filled with elegant and accomplished women, 
some of whom are remarkable for their literary and sci- 
entific attainments. These ladies now occupy offices pro- 
vided in a plain building on Fifteenth street. Their rooms 
are smaller and much more private than those of the 
Treasury opposite. Their work is the copying, recording, 
and registering of the letters of the department. No men 
are employed in these offices. Their superintendent is a 
lady, who has entire supervision of the ladies and the labor 
of this division. She is the widow of a naval officer who 
died in the service, a descendant of Benjamin Franklin, 
and occupies now, as she has all her life, the highest social 
position. She has children to support, and carries heavy of- 
ficial responsibilities — her duties are identical with those 
of the head of any other bureau — she receives only the 
stipend of the lowest male clerk, twelve hundred dollars. 
Elizabeth Akers Allen (Florence Percy), whose deep and 
tender lyrics call forth such universal response, held a po- 
sition in this office until her last marriage. 

Women of education and the finest intellectual gifts are 
to be found in every department. No inconsiderable num- 
ber attempt to bring their meagre nine hundred dollar 
salary up to the most ignorant man employe's twelve hun- 
dred, by writing for the press, or pursuing some artistic 
employment outside of office hours. 

The Treasury boasts of a number of more than ordi- 
nary women correspondents, whose letters have attracted 
wide attention by the really important information which 
they have imparted, concerning internal workings of De- 
partmental life and service. Foremost among these, is 
Miss Austine Snead (Miss Grundy, of the New York 
World). ""Miss Snead is the only and fatherless daughter 



360 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

of an accomplished gentleman. She is a "Class-child" 
of Harvard College, a loyal Kentuckian whom, with her 
youthful and lovely mother, the vicissitudes of war drifted 
to the one work-shop of the Nation open to women. The 
loss of her position, by change of administration, forced 
her to turn to the chance of journalism, and in the branch 
of the profession which she entered, she rose at once to 
the foremost rank. Mrs. Snead, formerly a famous belle 
of Louisville, Kentucky, is one of the most patient, faith- 
ful, and accurate counters in the redemption division of 
the Treasury, and is beside, weekly correspondent of the 
Louisville Courier Journal. Both are women who wear 
industry, integrity, and honor as their jewels, far dearer 
to them than all the lost treasures of Fortune's more 
prosperous days. 

The Internal Eevenue Bureau, a branch of the Treas- 
ury Service, and occupying beautiful apartments in the 
Treasury Building, employs a large number of women. 
Copying, recording, filing of letters, and keeping accounts, 
make the chief work of this division. It demands a high 
order of clerical ability, and the books kept by these 
ladies are marvels of mechanical beauty. 

The complications and immensity of the Internal Rev- 
enue Service, make this one of the busiest offices in the 
entire Department. It contains from forty-five to fifty 
women — employes. Beside those who execute the ex- 
quisite copper-plate copying, there are many whose whole 
duty is "head work." This consists of examining, sort- 
ing, and filing the different daily communications received 
at the office. These are of one hundred and fifty varieties, 
concerning internal revenue, taxes, etc., subjects usually 
supposed not to be particularly lucid to the average fern- 



how woman's work is paid. 361 

inine mind. Many are employed in examining, approv- 
ing, and recording reports of surveys of distilleries, and 
other important papers ; and such is the estimate placed 
on their business capacity, as thus applied, that their 
opinions on the papers are accepted without question. 

At one of these desks sits a lovely sylph-like creature, 
whose bird-like hands always reminds me of Charlotte 
Bronte's. She is scarcely bigger than the two big books 
which she handles and "keeps" — and to see her at them, 
perched upon a high stool, is " a sight." Born and reared 
in affluence, fragile in constitution, and exquisitely sensi- 
tive in organism, she is yet intellectually one of the best 
clerks — no "employes" in the Bureau. Years ago, she 
Was placed at this eighteen hundred dollar desk, which a 
man-clerk had just vacated. She has filled it, perform- 
ing its duties for seven or eight years, for the woman's 
stipend of nine hundred dollars. When the new Civil 
Service Rules first went into operation, she was awarded 
twelve hundred dollars per annum, for her service from 
that date. To have awarded her the remaining six hun- 
dred dollars, which was paid the man at the same desk, 
for doing the same work, would have been an equality of 
justice, from which the average official masculine mind 
instinctively recoiled. 

Apropos of the preponderance of favor with which 
this same official masculine mind is able to regard and 
reward itself, is the case of a lady in another division. 
She has mathematical genius, and is one of the best prac- 
tical mathematicians in the Treasury Department. Many 
of the statistical tables, for reports to Congress, are made 
out by her. Members of Congress, on the most import- 
ant committees, do not disdain to come to her for assist- 



362 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

ance in making out their reports. Near two years ago, a 
man-clerk, in the same room with this lady, (who received 
his appointment through political favoritism,) became so 
dissipated, that he was totally unfitted to fulfil the duties 
of his desk, and he was carried by his friends to an ine- 
briate asylum. Since that time, this lady, in addition to 
the arduous duties of her own desk, has performed all the 
labor accruing to that of the absent inebriate. She whose 
official existence as a clerk is denied by the legislators 
who employ her, has performed steadily, for many months, 
the labor of two men-clerks. How much does she re- 
ceive for so doing? Nine hundred dollars a year. The 
eighteen hundred dollars, which she earns at one desk, is 
paid to the drunkard in whose name she earns it ! 

The Government, who support this man for being a 
drunkard, forces a woman to do his work for nothing, or 
lose the chance of earning the pittance paid to her in her 
own name. This lady, broken in health by her long-con- 
tinued and overtaxing toil, sees what before her? Surely 
not recognition or justice from the Government which 
she serves and honors, while it, through selfishness and 
injustice, disgraces itself. 

Of the forty-five ladies in the Internal Revenue Bu- 
reau, there is but one, and she fifty years of age, who 
has not more than herself to support on the pittance 
which she is paid. Nevertheless, whenever a spasmodic 
cry of "retrenchment" is raised, three women are always 
dismissed from office, to one man, although the men so 
greatly outnumber the women, to say nothing of their 
being so much more expensive. 

" One of the greatest advocates of economy took work 
from a woman whose pay was the invariable nine hun- 



MAN VERSUS WOMAN. 363 

dred dollars per year, to give it to a man, who received 
for doing it, sixteen hundred dollars. No complaint was 
made of her manner of doing the work, but the head of 
the division said that she could count money, and he had 
not enough work for the men. Nothing was said of dis- 
missing the superfluous male clerks. The work given the 
manly mind, in this instance, was the entering of dates 
of redemption opposite the numbers of redeemed notes. 
A child of ten years could scarcely have blundered at it. 
The same date was written sometimes for two weeks at a 
time." 

The lady at the head of the woman's division of the 
Internal Revenue Bureau, has filled the position, with 
marked efficiency, for ten years, and upon the adoption 
of the new Civil Service Rules, she was authorized to re- 
ceive eighteen hundred dollars per annum. 

The lady who is one of the librarians of the library 
of the Treasury, is an accomplished linguist, a very intel- 
lectual woman. She was appointed by Mr. Boutwell, and 
received sixteen hundred dollars. 

There are some very important desks filled by ladies in 
the Fifth Auditor's office. Into their hands come all con- 
sular reports. To fulfil their duties efficiently, they must 
possess a knowledge of banking, as well as of mathe- 
matics. 

Before the Civil Service Rules were vetoed, several 
ladies competed in one, two, and three examinations. 
Thus several won, by pure intellectual test, twelve hun- 
dred dollars, sixteen hundred dollars, eighteen hundred 
dollars, and one or two, I believe, a twenty-two hundred 
dollars position. 

In the office of the Comptroller of the Treasury, are 



364 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

some very important desks filled by ladies. One young 
lady in this office has charge of the correspondence with 
the national banks and engraving companies. This in- 
volves a complicated routine. The desk was formerly 
filled by a man who received fourteen hundred dollars. 
It was taken from him because he was two hundred let- 
ters behind date. The work which has been in charge of 
this lady for six or seven years, at nine hundred dollars 
per annum, is always even with the day. 

Another young lady, in this office, prepares an abstract 
of the circulation issued and returned by national banks, 
by means of which an immediate answer can be given, 
when information is asked, as to the outstanding circula- 
tion of any particular bank. Another laborious task, per- 
formed in this office by a lady, is the preparation of an 
abstract of the number of notes of each denomination 
and issue, work requiring great intellectual exactness 
and care. 

In the Post Office Department, there are forty-seven 
women who address "returned letters," i. e., letters which 
have miscarried, and which are to be returned, if the sig- 
nature, or anything inside the letter, gives a clue to whom 
it is to be sent. There are ten women who fold " dead 
letters," and three who translate foreign letters. 

The lady in charge of the women clerks in the Dead 
Letter Office, is the daughter of an officer high in rank 
in the army, now dead. Her grandfather was the Presi- 
dent of a New England college. Mrs. Pettigru King, 
whose father was the Governor of South Carolina, and 
a member of the United States Senate, herself a woman 
of remarkable talents, was long employed in the Dead- 
Letter Office. Sitting among many younger women, her 



THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 365 

hands flying as swift as any of theirs — the daily task, that 
of re-directing two hundred letters, usually completed by 
her before that of any one else — we see a fair, round-faced, 
blue-eyed woman, whose sudden, bright glance and rapid 
movements at once fix our attention. She looks to be 
about fifty; she is in reality over seventy years of age. 
She and her history combined, probably make as remark- 
able a fact as the Dead-Letter Office contains. She is 
the widow of a clergyman. When the war broke out, 
her only son became hopelessly insane. "As he could 
not go to the war, I went myself," she said. As the As- 
sistant-Manager of the United States Sanitary Committee 
for an entire State," she raised, in money, ten thousand 
dollars, and collected and distributed ninety thousand hos- 
pital articles. She was in the field, in the hospital, and 
travelling between certain large cities, till the close of the 
war. Just as she finished her great work, she fell and 
broke one of her limbs. This confined her to her room 
for six months. In the meantime, her daughter's hus- 
band died, leaving her with three little children, and no 
income. Soon after, the mother lost what little she had, 
and the entire family were left penniless. After an un- 
successful attempt at the widow's forlorn hope, "keeping 
boarders," mother and daughter came to Washington, and 
sought for positions in the Departments. "Friends tried 
to dissuade us," said the old lady. " They told us that 
we must not come here, to mingle with such people as 
they thought were in the Departments. We have not 
seen them. I have been three years in the Post Office 
Department, and my daughter in the Treasury, and we 
have met none but respectable women." 

Three winters ago, by act of Congress, she was allowed 



366 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

to place her insane son in the Lunatic Asylum here, free 
of charge, leaving her at liberty to assist her daughter in 
the support of her young family. Notwithstanding her 
war services, and the names of twenty prominent men in 
her native State attached to her papers, it took her six 
months to obtain, for herself and daughter, the chances to 
labor which she sought. "Sorrow does not kill," she 
says, and as we look into her beaming eyes, we say it 
does not even extinguish the brightness of a soul forever 
young, — and yet this lady, in a few eventful years, " lived 
through sorrow enough to break any heart less stout than 
hers." 

In the Patent Office, fifty-two women clerks are allowed 
by law. A few women are employed in copying Pension 
Rolls in the Pension Office, who have a room provided 
for them in the Patent Office. Ten or twelve women 
have work given them from the Patent Office, which they 
do at their homes. This work, as well as that done in 
the Office, consists chiefly of the drawing of models. 
Every model of all the tens of thousands received in the 
Patent Office, from the beginning to the present day, has 
thus been re-produced and preserved. Glazed transpar- 
ent linen is placed over the engraved lines, and through 
this, with ink and stencil, the most intricate and exquisite 
lines are drawn. To do this work perfectly, a lady must 
be something of an artist and draughtswoman. Magnify- 
ing glasses are used, and even with their aid, the work is 
most trying, and often destructive to the eyesight. The 
salary fixed for this work is ten hundred dollars per an- 
num. Those who take their work home, and are paid by 
the piece, make as much as those who give the work will 
allow. Here, of course, is a large opportunity for favor- 



A LADY TAXIDERMIST. 367 

itism and injustice. Thus favorites are often allowed to 
do twice their share, while others get barely work enough 
to subsist. 

The Agricultural Department affords temporary em- 
ployment for numbers of women, for two or three months 
of the year, and two have permanent positions there. 
The temporary work is the putting up of seeds for uni- 
versal distribution, and occasionally copying is given out. 
Of the two ladies who find constant employment there, 
one is the assistant of Professor Glover, in taking charge 
of the Museum. She is the widow of a western editor, 
and at one time had exclusive control of a public journal 
(an agricultural one,) herself. She is a woman of large 
intelligence, a proficient in botany and natural history, 
which fact gave her, her present position, and enabled 
her to fill it with credit to herself. The other lady em- 
ploye is a taxidermist, who prepares the birds and insects 
for the Museum. The officers of this Department regard 
her as a proficient in her profession. She is a German, 
has been connected with the Department over six years, 
and has a room provided for her in the beautiful agricul- 
tural building. 

Woman's work in the Government Printing-Office, re- 
mains yet to be noticed, but enough has been mentioned, 
to prove its value in other branches of the Civil Service. 
It would be strange if so large a hive held no drones. It 
is doubtless true, that while many women are not only 
qualified, but actually perform the duties of the highest 
class desks, for an unjust pittance, many more do not 
even earn their nine hundred dollars per annum. There 
could be no more striking proof of the inequality and 
injustice which prevail in our Civil Service, than the 



3G8 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". 

fact that such persons, men and women, are appointed 
by men in power, really to be supported by the Gov- 
ernment, and receive from that Government, for ineffi- 
ciency and idleness, all, and more, than is paid often to 
the most intellectual, the most efficient, the most devoted 
of its servants. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

WOMEN'S WORK IN THE TREASURY. 

The Scales of Justitia — Where They Hang and Where They Do Not Hang 
— The Difference Between Men and AVomen — Reform a "' Sham ! " — The 
First Women-Clerks — A Shameful and Disgraceful Fraud — What Two 
Women Did — Cutting Down the Salaries of Women — The First Wo- 
man-Clerk in the Treasury — Taking Her Husband's Place — Working 
"in Her Brother's Name" — A Matter of Expediency — The Feminine 
Tea-Pot — The Secretary Growls at the Tea-Pots — The Hegira Of the 
Tea-Pots — Thackeray's Opinion of Nature's Intentions — Blind on One 
Side — In War Days— General Spinner Visits Secretary Chase — "A Wo- 
man can Use Scissors Better than a Man " — Profound Discovery ! — 
" She '11 do it Cheaper"—- 1 ' Light Work"—" Recognized "—Besieged by 
Women — Scenes of Distress and Trouble — Hundreds of Homeless Wo- 
men — After the War — How the Appointments were Made — Creating an 
Interest — The Advantages of the " Sinners " — Infamous Intrigues — The 
Baseness of Certain Senators — Virtue Spattered with Mud — A Disgrace 
to the Nation — Secret Doings in High Places — New Civil Service Rules — 
Sounding Magnanimous — Passing the Examination — The Irrepressible 
Masculine Tyrants— The New Rules a Perfect Failure — Up to the Mark, 
but not Winning — An Alarming Suggestion — Men versus Women — Tam- 
pering with the Scales — How Much a Woman Ought to be Paid — Opin- 
ion of a Man in Power — Interesting Description of an Average Repre- 
sentative — " Keeping Women in Their Place " — Getting up a Speech on 
Women — The Man who Stayed at Home — Generosity of the " Back-Pay " 
Congress — What Women Believe Ought to be Done. 

ON the carved cornices which surmount windows and 
mirrors in the spacious Office of the Secretary of 
the Treasury may be seen, equally balanced above its 
keys, the scales of Justitia. Would that they symbolized 
the equal justice reigning through the minutest division 
of the great departments of the Government service. 
24 



370 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

i 

Weighted with human Selfishness, perhaps this is im- 
possible. Majestic in aspect, great in magnitude, in en- 
ergy and action, they will never be morally grand till 
they are established and perpetuated in absolute equity. 
In that hour the scales of Justitia will hang in equal bal- 
ance above the head of the masculine and feminine 
worker. Whatever their difference, there will be no dis- 
parity in the equity which shall measure, weigh and re- 
ward equal toil. To-day the departments of Govern- 
ment teem with kindness and favoritism to individual 
women. What they lack is justice to woman. This they 
have lacked from the beginning. What a comment on 
human selfishness is the fact, that with all the legislation 
of successive Congresses, the employment of women in 
the departments of the Government is to-day as it was in 
the beginning — perpetuated in favoritism and injustice. 
Civil Service Reform, as carried on, is a mockery and a 
sham. Nowhere has its hollow pretence been so visible — 
so keenly felt — as in its utter failure of simple justice to 
the woman-worker in the public service. 

From the beginning, when her work has been tacitly 
recognized and rewarded as a man's, her sex has been 
proscribed. The first work given to women from the 
Government was issued from the General Land Office, as 
early, if not earlier, than President Pierce's administra- 
tion, and consisted of the copying of land warrants. This 
work was sent to their homes. They received it in the 
name of some male relative, and for that reason were paid 
what he would have received for doing it, viz., twelve 
hundred dollars per annum. One lady supported a worth- 
less husband (the nominal clerk) and her two children in 
this way, doing all his work for him. Another supported 



THE ILL-PAID LADY-CLEKKS. 371 

herself, her two nephews, and educated them out of the 
same salary. 

During Mr. Buchanan's administration, this work was 
taken out of feminine hands, to a very large extent, and 
the few allowed to retain it were paid only six hundred 
dollars. Somewhere in this era the first woman clerk ap- 
peared in the Treasury. She was a wife who, during her 
husband's illness, was allowed to take his desk and to do 
his work, for his support and their children's. This she 
continued to do until her second marriage ; but it was in 
her brothers name. She copied and recorded, did both 
well, and was paid — not because she did well, but because 
she did her work in the name of a man — sixteen hundred 
dollars per annum. Thus, while this lady performed the 
work of a man, and performed it in his name, as a woman 
her presence at the desk was a subterfuge, and her official 
existence ignored. 

Without recognition or acknowledgment, the woman- 
clerk system in the Treasury Department is an outgrowth 
of expediency. Like many another fact born of the same 
parentage, it soon proved its own right to existence, and 
refused to be extinguished. 

By the time that Secretary McCulloch made his advent, 
the feminine tea-pot had invaded every window-ledge. 
The Secretary complained of the accumulation of tea- 
pots in the Treasury of the nation. They vanished, and 
ceased to distill the gentle beverage for the woman-worker 
at her noonday lunch. "Nature meant kindly by wo- 
man when it made her the tea-plant," Thackeray says. 
The presence of her tea-pot was made a mental and 
moral sign, by political philosophers, that woman was un- 
fit for Government service. Nobody ever heard that the 



372 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

costly cigars and tobacco which filled the man clerk's 
" nooning," to the exhilaration of his body and soul, was 
a like sign of his inability to perform prolonged service 
without the aid of stimulants. 

In war days, when tens of thousands of men were 
withdrawn from civil labor, and when one day's expense 
to the Government equalled a whole year's in the time of 
Washington, General Spinner went to Secretary Chase 
and said : "A woman can use scissors better than a man, 
and she will do it cheaper. I want to employ women to 
cut the Treasury notes." Mr. Chase consented, and soon 
the great rooms of the Treasury witnessed the unwonted 
sight of hundreds of women, scissors in hand, cutting and 
trimming each Treasury-note sheet into four separate 
notes. This was " light work ; " but if anybody supposes 
it easy, let him try it for hours without stopping, and the 
exquisite pain in his shoulder-joints and the blisters on his 
fingers will bear aching witness to his mistake. 

Washington was full of needy women, of women whom 
the exigencies of war had suddenly bereft of protection 
and home. In her appointment at that hour, political dif- 
ferences went for nothing. Every poor woman who ap- 
plied to the good General was given work if he had it. 
A pair of scissors were placed in her hands, and she was 
told to go at it. She had no official appointment or ex- 
istence. During 1862, these women were paid six hun- 
dred dollars per annum out of the fund provided by Con- 
gress for temporary clerks. A year or two later the 
working existence of these women was recognized in the 
annual appropriation bills. 

After that it did not take long to spread through the 
land that the Government Departments in Washington 



THE DEPARTMENTS DURING THE WAR. 373 

offered work to women. The land was full — fuller than 
ever before of women who needed work to live. Ne- 
cessity, exaggeration, romance and sorrow, combined as 
propelling motives, and the Capital was soon overrun 
with women seeking Government employment. Then, 
more conspicuously than to-day, the supply far ex- 
ceeded the demand. The disappointment, the suffering, 
the sin which grew out of this fact, can never be meas- 
ured. 

The war had torn the whole social fabric like an earth- 
quake. Society seemed upheaved from its foundations — 
shattered, and scattered in chaos. Nowhere was this so 
apparent as in Washington. Women seeking their hus- 
bands ; women, whose husbands were dead, left penniless 
with dependent children. Young girls, orphaned and 
homeless, with women adventurers of every phase and 
sort, all, sooner or later, found their way to Washington. 
The male population was scarcely less chaotic. Men, re- 
strained and harmonized through life by the holiest influ- 
ences of home, found themselves suddenly homeless, 
herded together in masses, exposed to hardships, danger 
and undreamed-of temptations. " Let us eat and drink, 
for to-morrow we die," seemed to be blazoned on the 
painted sign-boards of the dens of drink and sin, and on 
the debauched and brazen faces of the stranger men and 
women who jostled each other on the crowded thorough- 
fares. 

While thousands escaped unharmed the moral pestilence 
which brooded in the air, tens of thousands more were 
touched with its blight, and fell. Men and women who 
would have lived and died innocent, in the safe shelter of 
peace and home, grew demoralized and desperate amid the 



374 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

rack and ruin of war. In the hour when human nature 
needed every sacred safeguard, it found itself bereft of 
the sweetest and best that it had ever known. This was 
especially true of the hundreds of homeless women in the 
Capital seeking employment. Congressional appropriations 
made woman's Government-employment at once a Con- 
gressional reward. Very soon, every woman's appoint- 
ment to work was at the mercy of some Member of Con- 
gress. Political or war-service might secure a man his, but 
what had the woman but her bereavements, or her personal 
influence ? For the sake of the former, noble men, in many 
instances, sought and found honest employment for noble 
women, for women who had given their husbands, sons 
and fathers, their own heart's blood, to their country, 
asking nothing in return but the chance to work for their 
own bread and their children's. 

In order to secure any Government position, the first 
thing a woman had to do was to go and tell her story to 
a man — in all probability a stranger — who possessed the 
appointing power, her chance of getting her place depend- 
ing utterly on the personal interest which she might be 
able to arouse in him. If he was sufficiently interested 
in her story, and in her, to make the official demand nec- 
essary, she obtained the coveted place, no matter what 
her qualifications for it, or her lack of them might be. If 
she failed to interest him, by no possibility could she se- 
cure that place, unless she could succeed in winning over 
to her cause another man of equal political power. If 
the men who held her chance for bread were good men, 
and she a good woman, well ; if they were bad men, and 
she a weak woman, not so well. In either case, the prin- 
ciple underlying the appointment was equally wrong. 



SECKET DEEDS OP MODEL CONGRESSMEN. 375 

It was this unjust mode of appointment which, in so 
many instances, especially through the years of the war, 
placed side by side, with pure and noble women, the 
women-adventurers and sinners, whose presence cast so 
much undeserved reproach upon the innocent, and who 
caused the only shadow of disrepute which has ever fallen 
upon woman's Treasury-service. Even in the worst days 
this class formed the exceptions to a host of honorable 
and noble women, and yet the shameful fact cannot be 
wiped out that men, high in political power, because they 
had that power, made womanly virtue its price, and were 
meanly base enough to use the Civil Service of their 
country to pay for their own disgraceful sins. Because 
this was possible, pure women, working day by clay to sup- 
port themselves and their children, were covered with the 
shadow of unjust suspicion, while women, unworthy and 
profligate, were allowed the same positions, with equal 
honor and equal pay. 

There could be no greater moral injustice to woman 
than to place her employment under the Government on 
such a basis. It put the best under ban, while it drew 
those whose steps pointed downward swiftly along the in- 
evitable descent. There was but one redress that the 
State could offer to its daughters, that of making their 
chance equal to that of its sons. Then, if they failed, the 
failure would be their own ; if they succeeded, they would 
not be defrauded by the Government they served. 

The new Civil-Service Rules, whatever their impracti- 
cability in other ways, seemed to offer to the women- 
workers of the Government this redress. If education 
and fitness were to be made the standard of Departmental 
Service, alike for women as mem then the reign of favor- 



376 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

itism and might must end. An idle woman, the pet of 
some man in power, would no longer receive all that was 
paid a woman filling the desks of two men. The woman 
who had proved, by years of efficient service at a man's 
desk, that she was more than equal to the performing of 
his duties, would cease to receive for doing them the pit- 
tance of the veriest idler in the lobbies, and no more. 

It sounded well ; magnanimous men and true women, 
yearning only for justice, and that it might be earned and 
won without ado, took heart. Educated women from 
North and South, East and West, flocked to the Capital 
to compete in impartial intellectual examination with 
men. Many of these were teachers — all women to whom 
self-support, or the support of others, were indispensable. 
The number of women who have passed the highest com- 
petitive examinations, is remarkable. Their life-long pur- 
suits and intellectual training made it impossible that, 
in this regard, they should prove second to men. The 
number so great, that all could receive appointments was 
not probable. 

In the face of so many new professions of equality of 
chance in the public service for women, the astonishing 
fact is, that while women pass the highest examinations 
with honor, it is men, with scarcely an exception, who 
pass into the highest places. With a mocking outcry of 
". justice and equality," uttered to appease the universal 
demand, selfishness and might still prevail in all depart- 
mental appointments. Political and personal influence 
appoint women to-day, just as they did before one woman 
was summoned to compete in intellectual examination 
with men. 

"You were fools to expect a twelve-hundred-dollar 



AFRAID OF WOMEN COHPOSITOKS. 377 

clerkship because you passed the examination of that 
class," said a high appointing officer of the Treasury to 
two ladies, one who had come from a far Western, the 
other from a far Eastern State. Both ladies passed the 
highest competitive examination — both, after months of 
wearing anxiety and struggle, with the wolf at the door, 
received — a nine-hundred-dollar clerkship. Did they re- 
ceive even that on the high merit of their competitive 
examination ? Not at all ; had their appointment de- 
pended on that, they would not have received one at all. 
Sick and worn out, they received it at last on the special 
plea of two men in office, each having political power in 
his respective State. 

With such results, I ask, what is a competitive exami- 
nation to women but a shame to the power that treacher- 
ously offers it ? The man who passes such an examina- 
tion cannot receive less than a twelve-hundred-dollar 
clerkship ; the woman who passes triumphantly the se- 
verest intellectual test offered by the Government, cannot 
receive more than a nine-hundred-dollar position. Why ? 
So many women came to Washington and proved, by 
actual mental examination, that they were fully competent 
to fill the highest civil offices in the departments, its 
officials became alarmed. " Taken on their attainments, 
they will push out the men," they exclaimed, in alarm. 
Then straightway they fell back, as men in power always 
do, to carry their own ends on unjust legislation. They 
based their decision on the Act of Congress of four years 
ago, which fixed the salary of all women employed in the 
Government Departments at nine hundred dollars per 
annum. 

The result of all the loud hypocritical outcry of civil 



378 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

equality to women is, that hereafter, no matter how high 
the competitive examination which she passes, no matter 
what the services which she renders, no woman is to re- 
ceive more than nine hundred dollars per year for any 
appointment received after a certain date ; and no man, 
no matter how low the labor which he performs, be it only 
as a messenger to run through the halls, is to receive less 
than twelve hundred dollars per annum. 

Cast clown your scales, 0, Justitia, let them shiver to 
atoms on its marble floor for hanging in equal balance 
above the keys of the Treasury of the United States. 
They are a mocking lie. Beneath these desecrated sym- 
bols sits the Secretary of the Treasury, and to him a few 
shrinking, yet daring, women have appealed. "Four 
hundred dollars a year is enough for any woman to be 
paid for her work," replies this accidental potentate, borne 
from obscurity to power solely by the " boosting " of a 
friend, who lifted him from his unthought-of " bench " in 
Massachusetts, with no guarantee of fitness from his past, 
to the chief ship of the Treasury of the Nation. " Four 
hundred dollars is enough for any woman to receive for 
her work, and more than she could earn anywhere else," 
replies this man. 

This one remark, pitted against the facts recorded in 
this chapter, proved the man who made it as too narrow- 
minded and unjust, too pervaded with the caste and self- 
ishness of sex, to be fit to hold the appointing power 
over hundreds of women, in culture and intellectually 
more than his peers. No man whose spring of action is 
" might is right " has a right to rule. 

To-day nothing could be more humiliating to a high- 
spirited, intelligent, honorable woman, than to sit in the 



woman's work and wages. 379 

gallery of the Hall of Representatives and be compelled 
to listen to a debate on woman's work and wages going on 
below. Yet if she never heard the words uttered by men 
who claim to be the representatives of the people, and who 
make the laws which define her rights and decide her 
rewards, she could never realize how selfish, ungenerous, 
and unjust is the average man who assumes to represent 
woman, and to legislate for her welfare. These men, on 
the average, are fairly good husbands and indulgent 
fathers. They are anything but tyrants, personally, to 
the women of their families. But their personal relations 
do not prevent them from placing a very low estimate 
upon the powers, performance, place and prospects of 
women in general. Their caste of sex infiltrates through 
every word they utter. 

The man who is " bound to keep woman in her place," 
before he makes a speech to that effect, rushes into the 
Congressional Library, and asks Mr. Spofford to give him 
every book which will help him to prove that woman is a 
weak and inefficient creature. He then proceeds to 
" cram " himself with a crude mass of statements, which 
he extracts pell-mell out of a heap of books. This un- 
assimilated and impracticable load he delivers, a few days 
later, to Congress, to the galleries, and to the Globe — to 
prove that — no matter what her qualities or qualifications, 
moral or mental — being a woman, for that fact alone, she 
must not be a clerk, but an "employe ;" and no matter 
what she has done or is capable of doing in the service of 
the Government, for that service she must receive but 
nine hundred dollars, and the sum be fixed by law. 

There are honorable exceptions — a few men in Congress 
who, in the broadest and best sense, are the friends of 



380 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

woman. They form a small minority. The majority, 
after having made woman's very existence as a Govern- 
ment-worker to depend on their own personal favoritism 
or caprice, stand up in Congress and cast stones at the 
very class which they have themselves created. In nine 
cases out of ten, these men staid at home while others 
fought their country's battles. And now they reward 
the widows and orphans of soldiers and sailors by giving 
them a reluctant chance to earn their bread on half-pay. 
They do it under sufferance, while these legislators with- 
hold just remuneration, sneer at their work, and defame 
their characters. 

The Forty-second Congress, which, in its most hurried 
moments, could take time to vote to its members an in- 
crease of salary from five thousand to eight thousand a 
year, rejected without debate a proposition to give women- 
clerks in the departments equal compensation with men, 
for the same labor. What added proof is required to 
show that the law-making power of our land is fast be- 
coming a monied monopoly — a legislature for the rich — 
an ignorer of the poor. " Eight thousand dollars every 
twelve months, by dint of close economy, will keep my 
wife and daughters in silks and velvets ; will give them a 
phaeton by the sea, and make beautiful their paths upon 
the mountain tops! What to me are the wives and 
daughters of the poor ? What care of mine the widows 
and orphans of men who perished in their country's ser- 
vice, if they do support themselves and their children by 
working for this just Government, which I help to make, 
for nine hundred dollars a year! while I pay at least 
twelve hundred to the laziest masculine lout who dawdles 
with papers across the Treasury floors ? " 



LEGISLATING FOE WOMEN. 381 

Yet there was scarely a Member of that Congress that 
would not repel with jest or sneer the mere mention of 
woman's demand, in the face of such injustice, to legislate 
for herself. If you would avert this catastrophe, gentle- 
men, show that you are capable of just legislation ; prove 
that the power of franchise does not always beget oppres- 
sion to the disfranchised. I point to the practical working 
of the new Civil-Service Rules, to your own greedy grasp 
of additional thousands, with the refusal to grant three 
meagre hundreds to working women, to prove that woman 
has no hope of justice in man's representation. Repre- 
sent her interests with half the eager avidity which marks 
your devotion to your own, and she will never ask to rep- 
resent herself. But no matter what her individual dis- 
taste to public responsibility, nothing is more apparent to 
the wide-visioned, thoughtful woman than that, in a re- 
public, the only possibility of obtaining personal justice 
lies in political equality. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

MR. PARASITE IN OFFICE— HOW PLACE AND POWER 

ARE WON. 

Government Official Life — Its Effects on Human Nature — Keeping his Eye 
Open — The Sweet and Winning Ways of Mr. Parasite — In Office — The 
Fault of " the People " and "my Friends" — Shrinking from Responsi- 
bilities—Pulling the Wool over the Eyes of the Innocent — Writing Let- 
ters in a Big Way— The "Dark Ways" of Wicked Mr. P A 

Suspicious Yearning for Private Life — The Sweets of Office — A Little 
Change of Opinion — A Man Afflicted with Too Many Friends — Forgetting 
Things that Were — John Jones is not Encouraged — Post-offices as Plenti- 
ful as Blackberries — Receiving Office-seekers — " The Worst Thing in the 
World for You " — Dismissing John — Over-crowded Pastures — John's Own 
Private Opinion — The "Mighty Messenger" — Government-Servants — 
Peculiar Impartiality of the Man in Office — What the Successful Man Said 
— I Change My Opinion of Him — A Certain Kind of Man, and Where He 
can be Found. 

r>\ OVERNMENTAL official life has one effect upon 
yjT those whom it benefits, which is anything but cred- 
itable to human nature. 

Mr. Parasite wants a high place in the governmental 
service, and circumstances favor his getting it. While 
there is any doubt about it, he does not disdain to use 
any influence within his reach to make it certain. How 
lovely he is to everybody whose good word or ill word 
may " tell " for or against him. How affable he is to 
every mortal, from the lowliest outspoken man in his 
home town, to the influential writer, whose powerful pen 
he wishes to propitiate. Mr. Parasite glides into his place 



ME. PAKASITE IN OFFICE. 383 

with grace and resignation. "The people, the people, 
you know, and my friends — they forced it upon me. They 
quite overrate my fitness, quite. I shrink from such re- 
sponsibilities, such arduous labors; but, if my country 
needs me, if my constituents demand my services, I feel 
that I have no right to refuse, no right to consult my 
personal ease, although the desire of my heart is for the 
peaceful quiet of private life." 

Strange to tell, when an accommodating people are 
about to grant him the desire of his heart, Mr. Parasite 
suddenly starts up alert, and touches the springs of a most 
powerful enginery. He writes personal letters by thou- 
sands ; he has his friends — i. e. agents — at work for him 
everywhere, whispering with this one, arguing with that 
one, and urging his claims incessantly upon the appoint- 
ing power. But who, that did not know it, could be- 
lieve it. 

Chance to light upon Mr. Parasite about this time, 
and mention the subject of his possible appointment or 
election to him as one in which he is naturally interested. 
Lo ! amid all others, Mr. Parasite alone is indifferent. 
" Of course, it would be a compliment, a re-election or 
re-appointment. He would prize it much as a mark of 
confidence from the people, or the Government ; but 
really, so far as personal desires go, private life." 

Private life still fills the measure of his yearning. 
" Retirement " is still the goal of fris desire. This is but 
the weakness ; the crime of Mr. Parasite is revealed 
further on. The long suspense over, safely ensconced in 
that official chair, while its cushions are a new delight, its 
honors are fresh, its powers unwonted, perhaps a conscious- 
ness of gratitude remains with Mr. Parasite. It's a pleas- 



384 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

ant office, very. Carpeted, cushioned, curtained, pictured, 
secluded. It is pleasant, very. This ever-acknowledged 
honor of official state, messengers flying at your bid, doors 
swinging noiselessly at your approach, hats springing into 
air as you pass by, lorgnettes lifted by fair hands in great 
assemblies, the crowd peering and shouting, " There goes 
the great Mr. Parasite ! " Sweet, also, are the newly- 
found uses of official power — sweeter even than to die 
for one's country. The privileges of patronage, the con- 
sciousness of power over the fate of others, the uses of 
power in ministering to self — first sought and last relin- 
quished — of all the gifts of office. 

While all these retain the charm of newness, a sense of 
gratitude may remain with Mr. Parasite towards those who 
led and lifted him to his high estate. Rarely strong in any 
man, the sense of gratitude with continued office is sure to 
die out. When he first enters, and the memory of fresh ser- 
vices remains with him, he may feel, at least faintly, that 
he owes something to somebody besides himself; but the 
longer he remains, the surer he is that all is his by right, all 
due to his own exalted merit. There comes a time when 
it seems as if that cushioned chair, that luxurious office, 
those muffled doors, those cringing messengers, were all 
made especially for him and to do him service. With a 
growing sense of security in his position, comes, perhaps, 
an unconscious indifference toward those who, in the be- 
ginning, helped to lift him toward it. There is no inten- 
tional ingratitude, only it is so easy for some natures to 
forget others when they cease to need them. 

Then, too, official place, even in a republican govern- 
ment, hourly feeds in a man his love of power, and his 
sense of personal importance. It feeds the vanity and 



SNUBBING AN OFFICE SEEKER. 385 

self-satisfaction of poor human nature, when its fellows 
are dependent upon it even for the smallest favors. Few 
meet this test and survive it their noblest selves. It is 
astonishing how soon Mr. Parasite forgets that, a short 
time since, he was a seeker of favors himself, and is sure 
to be again, before old age strands him amid things gone 
by in the long-deferred haven of private life. 

While a feeling of dependence on others survives, an 
emotion of gratitude lingers, Mr. Parasite will try to treat 
other applicants for office as he desired to be treated a 
few short months since himself. But these emotions 
were never known to live through a single stress of a 
single term of office. 

Poor Mr. Parasite is very much beset ! Every hour 
in the day somebody wants something that somebody 
believes is in Mr. Parasite's power to bestow. It may be 
flattering, but it is also wearing, tearing, exasperating, 
and even maddening, sometimes, to a man to be deemed 
the dispenser of so much power and patronage. He can- 
not give everybody all that everybody may ask — of course 
not. This is not all his sin. His sin is this : He comes in 
time (usually in a marvellously short time) to regard every 
one seeking the patronage of his office as a mendicant 
on his personal bounty, rather than as a member of one 
class with himself. Because he gained the highest honor, 
he forgets that he got it on the very same principle that 
John Jones, who, armed with credentials from his minis- 
ter and doctor, so humbly sues for the post-office of Mud- 
town. He listens to the sister pleading for her brother, 
the wife for her husband, the father for his son, the poor 
man for himself, and because it is little each asks, de- 
spises each accordingly, lectures each on the folly of 
25 



386 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

wanting any Government place whatever. The one 
thing that he cannot remember, and which it is most de- 
lightful to forget, is that he was ever in John Jones' 
place himself. 

To be sure, he did not sue for the Mudtown post-office. 
He wanted a foreign ministry, a home secretaryship, to 
be a Senator, or, at least, a Governor. He begged or bar- 
tered for these Government-gifts precisely as John does 
for his post-office. Both are equally office-seekers ; but 
there is such disparity between John's little Alpha and 
the Omega of Mr. Parasite's desires, the latter does not rec- 
ognize in this seeker of small things his remotest cousin. 
Comparatively few dare demand ministries and secreta- 
ryships, while post-offices and their ilk are as plentiful 
as blackberries, and their pickers equally so — so plentiful 
that Mr. Parasite leans back in his cushioned chair, on his 
official tripod, and wonders which John Jones it will be 
next, and what he will want ; and, when one of the 
innumerable Johns, waiting outside, is admitted by a 
mighty messenger, whose official state is more over- 
whelming even than his master's, the suppliant quakes 
to the bottom of his boots in the presence of the power- 
ful potentate, Mr. Parasite. 

" What do you want ? " says the potentate, in a tone 
which implies in advance, " You can't have it." 

"Only the Mudtown post-office," says John, "or — or 
anything that I can get." 

"Impossible; I have nothing — nothing for you," says 
the potentate, in a remote and superior tone, which indi- 
cates, as only a tone can, that he, the potentate, needs 
nothing at present himself. And who can imagine that 
he ever did ? " Why on earth do so many of you come 



mk. parasite's grandeur. 387 

for Government employment? Don't you know it is the 
worst thing in the world for you? You had better go to 
work. Do anything, rather than to hang upon the 
Government." 

Thus one John is dismissed, to go and browse in the 
closely-cropped and over-crowded pastures of the ineffi- 
cient and ne'er-do-well mediocrity. . 

Several days later, when John rebounds from the shock 
imparted by Mr. Parasite's grandeur, its momentum sends 
him pat against a fact. " Why, he is a hanger-on to the 
Government himself." Yes ; and so, in one sense, is every 
office-holder, from the President down to the mighty mes- 
senger who condescends to shut and open doors. It implies 
no discredit to be a server of the Government ; but it re- 
veals a very ignoble side of human nature, when the favored 
holder rebuffs the lowliest seeker as a being from another 
race, in any essential quality the antipodes of himself. 

A man w T ho has just been lifted by his friends from one 
high place to another, has long boasted, w T hile in power, 
" that he would not help a friend sooner than an enemy." 
I had a certain admiration for him till I knew that he 
said this, and proved it by his practice. There is some- 
thing true and grateful and noble lacking in a man's na- 
ture, when he turns from his friend as he would from an 
enemy, doing nothing for either; always taking, and 
never giving; always seeking, yet sneering at others 
who seek ; always subsisting on Government bounty and 
place himself, while he wounds, ignores, and sometimes 
insults the unfortunates who wish to do likewise and can't. 

This is Mr. Parasite, and he lives, reigns and nourishes, 
as parasites only can, in every department of govern- 
mental state. 



CHAPTER XXXVH. 

THE DEAD LETTER OFFICE— ITS MARVELS AND MYS- 
TERIES. 

The Post-Office — Its Architecture — The Monolithic Corinthian Columns — 
The Postal Service in Early Times — The Act of Queen Anne's Reign — 
" Her Majesty's Colonies " — After the Revolution — The First Postmaster- 
General— The Present Chief— A Cabinet Minister — The Subordinate Offi- 
cers — Their Positions and Duties — The Ocean Mail Postal Service — The 
Contract Office — The Finance Office — The Inspection Office — Complaints 
and Misdoings — Benjamin Franklin's Appointment — He Goes into Debt — 
One Hundred and Twenty Years Ago — Franklin Performs Wonderful 
Works — His Ideas of Speed — Between Boston and Philadelphia in Six 
Weeks — Dismissed from Office — The Congress of " The Confederation"— 
A New Post Office System — Franklin Comes In Again — The Inspector of 
Dead Letters — Not Allowed to Take Copies of Letters — Only Seventy- 
five Offices in the States — Primitive Regulations— Only One Clerk — 
Government Stages — The Office at Washington — Saved from the British 
Troops — Franklin's Old Ledger — The Present Number of Post Offices — 
The Dead Letter Office — The Ladies Too Much Squeezed — Some of the 
Ladies " Packed " — Opening the Dead Letters — Why Certain Persons are 
Trusted — Three Thousand Thoughtless People — Valuable Letters — Ensur- 
ing Correctness — The Property Branch — The Touching Story of the Pho- 
tographs — The Return Branch — What the Postmaster Says. 

THOUGH injured in comparison by the higher site and 
loftier walls of the Patent-Office opposite, the Post- 
Office, in itself, is one of the most beautiful public build- 
ings in Washington. It occupies the entire block situated 
on Seventh and Eighth streets west, and E and F streets 
north. Like the Treasury and Patent-Office, it incloses 
a grassy court-yard on which its inner offices look out. 
The architecture of the Post-Office is a modified Corin- 



THE POST-OFFICE. 389 

thian, and is regarded by critics as the best representation 
of the Italian palatial ever built upon this continent. It 
was designed chiefly by F. A. "Walter, at that time archi- 
tect of the Capitol, an artist who has left monuments of 
architectural beauty behind him in marble which, seem- 
ingly, can never perish. On the Seventh street side there 
is a vestibule, the ceiling of which is composed of richly 
ornamented marbles, supported by four marble columns ; 
the walls, niches and floors are of marble, polished and tes- 
sellated. This is the grand entrance to the General Post- 
Oflice Department. The F street front affords accommo- 
dation to the city Post Office. It has a deeply recessed 
portico in the centre, consisting of eight columns grouped 
in pairs, and flanked by coupled pilasters supporting an 
entablature which girds the entire work. The portico 
is supported by an arcade which furnishes ample conven- 
ience for the delivery of letters, and the hurrying crowds 
which come after them. The Corinthian columns of this 
portico are each formed of a single block of marble, and 
each in itself is a marvel of architectural grace. The 
entrance for the mail wagons, on Eighth street, consists of 
a grand archway, the spandrels of which bear upon their 
face, sculpture representing Steam and Electricity, while 
a mask, representing Fidelity, forms the key-stone. 

The Postal Service of the country is the oldestbranch 
of the Government. As early as the year 1792, a propo- 
sition was introduced into the General Assembly of Vir- 
ginia, to establish the office of Postmaster-General of 
Virginia and other parts of America. The proposition 
became a law, but was never carried into effect. In 1710, 
during the reign of Queen Anne, the British Parliament 
established a General Post-Office for all Her Majesty's do- 



390 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

minions. By this act, the Postmaster-General was per- 
mitted to have one chief letter office in New York, and 
other chief letter offices at some convenient place or 
places in each of Her Majesty's provinces or colonies in 
America. When the colonies threw off their allegiance 
to the Crown, especial care was given to preserving, as far 
as possible, the postal facilities of the country. When 
the Federal Constitution was adopted, the right was se- 
cured to Congress "to establish Post-Offices and Post- 
Roads." In 1789, Congress created the office of Post- 
master-General, and defined his duties. Other laws have 
since been passed, regulating the increased powers and 
duties of the Department, which is now, next to the 
Treasury, the most extensive in the country. 

The Postmaster-General, the head of the Department, 
is a member of the President's Cabinet, and is in charge 
of the postal affairs of the United States. The business 
of the various branches of the Department is conducted 
in his name and by his authority. He has a general su- 
pervision of the whole Department, and issues all orders 
concerning the service rendered the Government through 
his subordinates. During the first administrations of the 
Government, the Postmaster-General was not regarded as 
a Cabinet Minister, but simply as the head of a Bureau. 
In 1829, General Jackson invited Mr. Barry, the gentle- 
man appointed by him to that office, to a seat in his Cab- 
inet. Since that time, the Postmaster-General has been 
recognized, as ex-qfficio, a Cabinet Minister. 

The first Postmaster-General was Samuel Osgood, of 
Massachusetts. The present Postmaster is John A. J. 
Creswell, of Maryland. 

The subordinate officers of the Department are three 



INSIDE THE POST-OFFICE. 391 

Assistant Postmaster-Generals, and the Chief of the In- 
spection Office. The Appointment Office is in charge of 
the First Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office are 
assigned all questions which relate to the establishment 
and discontinuance of post-offices, changes of sites and 
names, appointment and removal of postmasters, and route 
and local agents, as, also, the giving of instructions to 
postmasters. Postmasters are furnished with marking and 
rating-stamps and letter-balances by this Bureau, which is 
charged also with providing blanks and stationery for the 
use of the Department, and with the superintendence of 
the several agencies established for supplying postmasters 
with blanks. "To this Bureau is likewise assigned the 
supervision of the ocean-mail steamship-lines, and of the 
•foreign and international postal arrangements." 

The Contract-Office is in charge of the Second Assistant 
Postmaster-General. To this office is assigned the busi- 
ness of arranging the mail service of the United States, 
and placing the same under contract, embracing all cor- 
respondence and proceedings affecting the frequency of 
trips, mode of conveyance, and time of departures and 
arrivals on all the routes ; the course of the mail between 
the different sections of the country ; the points of mail 
distribution ; and the regulations for the government of 
the domestic mail service of the United States. It pre- 
pares the advertisements for mail proposals, receives the 
bids, and takes charge of the annual and occasional mail 
lettings, and the adjustment and execution of the con- 
tracts. All applications for the establishment or alteration 
of mail arrangements, and the appointment of mail mes- 
sengers, should be sent to this office. All claims should 
be submitted to it for transportation service not under 



392 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

contract, as the recognition of said service is first to be 
obtained through the Contract-Office as a necessary author- 
ity for the proper credits at the Auditor's-Office. 

From this office all postmasters at the ends of routes 
receive the statement of mail arrangements prescribed 
for the respective routes. It reports weekly to the Audi- 
tor all contracts executed and all orders affecting ac- 
counts for mail transportation; prepares the statistical 
exhibits of mail service, and the reports of the mail let- 
tings, giving a statement of each bid ; also of the contracts 
made, the new service originated, the curtailments or- 
dered, and the additional allowances granted within the 
year. 

The Finance-Office is in charge of the Third Assistant 
Postmaster-General. To this office is assigned the super- 
vision and management of the financial business of the 
Department not devolved by law upon the Auditor, em- 
bracing accounts with the draft offices and other deposi- 
tories of the Department; the issuing of warrants and 
drafts in payment of balances, reported by the Auditor 
to be due mail contractors and other persons ; the super- 
vision of the accounts of offices under orders to deposit 
their quarterly balances at designated points ; and the 
superintendence of the rendition by postmasters of their 
quarterly returns of postages. It has charge of the 
Dead-Letter Office, of the issuing of postage stamps and 
stamped envelopes for the prepayment of postage, and 
with the accounts connected therewith. 

To the Third Assistant Postmaster-General all post- 
masters should direct their quarterly returns ; those at 
draft-offices, their letters reporting quarterly the net pro- 
ceeds of their offices ; and those at depositing-offices, 



POST-OFFICE MACHINERY. 393 

their certificates of deposit. To him should also be directed 
the weekly and monthly returns of the depositories of the 
Department, as well as applications and receipts for post- 
age stamps and stamped envelopes, and for dead letters. 

The Inspection-Office is in charge of a Chief Clerk. 
To this office is assigned the duty of receiving and 
examining the registers of the arrivals and departures of 
the mails, certificates of the service of roi^e-agents, and 
reports of mail failures ; noting the delinquencies of con- 
tractors, and preparing cases thereon for the action of the 
Postmaster-General ; furnishing blanks for mail registers 
and reports of mail failures, providing and sending out 
mail bags and mail locks and keys, and doing all other 
things which may be necessary to secure a faithful and 
exact performance of all mail contracts. 

All cases of mail depredation, of violations of law by 
private expresses, or by the forging and illegal use of 
postage stamps, are under supervision of this office, and 
should be reported to it. All communications respecting 
lost money-letters, mail depredations, or other violations 
of law, or mail locks and keys, should be directed to 
" Chief Clerk, Post-Office Department." 

All registers of the arrivals and departures of the mails, 
certificates of the service of rowte-agents, reports of mail 
failures, applications for mail registers, and all complaints 
against contractors for irregular or imperfect service, 
should be directed, " Inspection Office, Post-Office Depart- 
ment." 

Benjamin Franklin was appointed General Deputy Post- 
master of the Colonies, in the year 1753, with a salary 
between him and his confederates, of £600, if they could 
get it. This experiment brought him in debt £900, and 



394 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

his success in expediting the mails, which he dwells upon 
with so much satisfaction in his writings, will create a 
smile in these days of electricity, steam, and "young- 
American" speed. In the year 1754, he gave notice that 
the mail to New England, which used to start but once a 
fortnight, in winter, should start once a week, all the year, 
" whereby answers might be obtained to letters between 
Philadelphia and Boston in three weeks, which used to 
require six weeks ! " 

Franklin was removed from his office by the British 
Ministry ; but in the year 1775, the Congress of the Con- 
federation having assumed the practical sovereignty of 
the Colonies, appointed a committee to devise a system 
of post-office communication, who made a report recom- 
mending a plan on the 26th of July, which on the same 
day was adopted, and Doctor Franklin unanimously ap- 
pointed Postmaster-General, at a salary of $1,000 per 
annum. The salary of the Postmaster-General was 
doubled on the 16th of April, 1779, and on the 27th day 
of December, of the same year, Congress increased the 
salary to $5,000 per annum. 

An Inspector of Dead Letters was also appointed, at a 
salary of $100 per annnm, who was under oath faithfully 
and impartially to discharge the duties of his office, and 
enjoined to take no copies of letters, and not to divulge 
the contents to any but Congress, or to those who were 
appointed by Congress for that purpose. Dr. Franklin, 
on the 7th of November, 1776, was succeeded as Post- 
master-General by his relative, Richard Bache, who re- 
mained in office till the 28th of Januaiy, 1782, when he 
was succeeded by Ebenezer Hazard, who was the last 
head of the General Post-Office under the Confederacy. 



PRIMITIVE POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS. 395 

In 1790, there were but seventy-five post-offices in the 
United States, and but eighteen hundred and seventy-five 
miles of post routes. 

The General Post-Office, in 1790, was located in New 
York, and Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts, was the first 
Postmaster-General under the Federal Government. His 
conception of the duties of his office were, doubtless, very 
humble, as he recommended "that the Postmaster-Gen- 
eral should not keep an office separate from the one in 
which the mail was opened and distributed ; that he 
might, by his presence, prevent irregularities, and rectify 
any mistakes that might occur ; " in fact, put the Post- 
master-General, his assistant, and their one clerk, in the 
city post-office, to see that its mails were assorted and 
made up correctly. 

The salary of Mr. Osgood was $1,500 per annum. Tim- 
othy Pickering was appointed by Washington, August 12, 
1791, at an increased salary of $2,000. Joseph Haloshan 
was the last Postmaster-General appointed by Washing- 
ton. He was commissioned April 22, 1795, at a salary of 
$2,400 per annum. The office was located in Phila- 
delphia, in the year 1796, and was established at Wash- 
ington when the Federal Government was removed there. 
In 1802, the United States ran their own stages between 
Philadelphia and New York, finding coaches, drivers, 
horses, etc., and cleared in three years over $11,000, by 
carrying passengers. 

That sultry morning of August 25, 1814, when Admiral 
Cockburn and his drunken crew, eager for fresh destruc- 
tion, marched from Capitol Hill to the War Office, which 
they burned, and from it down F street to treat the Post- 
Office to the same fate, they found it on the site where its 



396 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON". 

marble successor now stands, and under the same roof the 
Patent-Office. Says Charles J. Ingersoll, in his rambling 
history : 

" Dr. Thornton, then Chief of the Patent-Office, accompanied 
the detachment to the locked door of the repository, the key 
having been taken away by another clerk watching out of night. 
Axes and other implements of force were used to break in ; 
Thornton entreating, remonstrating, and finally prevailing on 
Major Waters, superintending the destruction, to postpone it 
till Thornton could see Colonel Jones, then engaged with Ad- 
miral Cockburn in destroying the office of the National Intelli- 
gencer, not far off on Pennsylvania avenue. Colonel Jones 
had declared that it was not designed to destroy private prop- 
erty, which Dr. Thornton assured Major Waters most of that in 
the Patent-Office was. A curious musical instrument, of his own 
construction, which he particularly strove to snatch from ruin, 
with a providential gust soon after, saved the seat of govern- 
ment from removal, for want of any building in which Congress 
could assemble, when they met in Washington three weeks 
afterwards. Hundreds of models of the useful arts, preserved 
in the office, were of no avail to save it ; but music softened 
the rugged breasts of the least musical of civilized people. 
Major Waters agreed, at last, to respite the patents and the 
musical instrument till his return from Greenleaf s Point, where 
other objects were to be laid in ruins." 

But with the explosion of the magazine at Greenleaf's 
Point, and the tornado, both of which made unexpected 
havoc with the lives of the British vandals, and their 
withdrawal under cover of night, they never came back 
to the Patent and Post-Office, to destroy it. It was, I 
believe, the only public building in the capital which 
escaped their torch. It was, however, destroyed by fire, 
December 15, 1836. 



INSIDE THE DEAD-LETTER OFFICE. 397 

One of the most precious treasures, now in the posses- 
sion of the Post-Office Department, is the original ledger 
of Doctor Benjamin Franklin, Postmaster-General, 1776, 
which upon its title-page bears the following record : 

" This book was rescued from the flames, during the burning 
of the Post-Office Building, on Thursday morning, Dec. 15, 
1836, by W. W. Cox, messenger of the office of the Auditor of 
the Treasury for the Post-Office Department." 

This ledger is now on file in the office of the Auditor 
of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department. Scorched 
and worn, it tells the story of time and fate. It embraces 
all the accounts of all the post-offices of the United 
States for the years 1776-77-78. These are all recorded 
in the handwriting of Doctor Franklin, and do not cover 
one hundred and twenty pages. The growth in the 
postal service may be partly measured by the fact that 
its money record, kept by Benjamin Franklin, running 
through eleven years, is equalled, at the present time, by 
the accounts of two days. When the philosopher was 
at the head of the Post-Office Department, there were 
eighty post-offices in the Confederation ; there are now 
thirty- two thousand post-offices in the United States, with 
the number constantly increasing. 

The Dead-Letter Office embodies more personal interest 
than any other in the Post-Office Department. It is a 
spacious room, unique in outline, many-windowed and 
well ventilated. It is surrounded by a wide gallery, sup- 
ported by spiral columns. An open iron staircase con- 
nects it with the lower 'office. It is set apart for the 
woman's work of this division. They are far out-num- 
bered by the men below, and yet in this narrow gallery 
they are sadly crowded. 



398 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Spacious as the Post-Office is, in going thereto, the same 
conclusion is forced upon one, which is apparent in every 
public building, that it is already too small for the vast 
and rapidly increasing demands of the public service. 
The gentlemen which you see at work below have nothing 
to complain of in lack of light or air, but the ladies 
above say that their little gallery is the escape valve to all 
the poisoned air below ; that their heads are so near the 
roof there is no chance for ventilation, and that sudden 
death, among their number, has been caused by the air- 
poison which pervades this gallery. The ladies need more 
room for a new office ; indeed, already they have over- 
flowed the gallery and are packed closely in the halls. 

Meanwhile, in an imposing-looking apartment beneath 
them, sit their brethren, on either side of the long table, 
opening the " dead-letters " which they are to re-direct. I 
believe there are fourteen clergymen, sitting at a single 
table, opening these letters. Preference is given to gentle- 
men of this profession, broken in health or fortune, as it is 
taken for granted that if they have lived to that age and 
fate, without ever having committed a dishonest act, it is 
most unlikely that they ever will — and that the treasure- 
letters are perfectly safe in their keeping. Moreover, 
their profession is also in their favor. They must have 
been unworldly-minded, says the reasoner, or they would 
never have chosen to be clergymen. Nearly all are 
elderly men, and among the number are a few old ones, — 
one, who has been in this office over fifty years, a brother 
of its one time Postmaster-General, Amos Kendall — hair 
white as snow — back bent over the table — hands trem- 
bling as he uses his knife — it is his life to go on opening his 
quota of daily letters, for the pittance of $1,200 per year. 



OPENING DEAD-LETTEKS. 399 

" If he were refused the privilege," said an officer, " he 
would die at once." 

In this office, from the thirty thousand post-offices in 
the United States are received, annually, about three 
million five hundred thousand dead-letters ; unmailable 
letters, three hundred and sixty thousand ; blank letters, 
three thousand. 

It seems impossible that three thousand persons, in a 
single year, should post letters without a single letter 
traced on their envelopes ; nevertheless, this is true. 

In one corner of this office stand two men, by an open 
door, whose business it is to receive the dead-letters as 
they ascend to the office. They come up on an elevator — 
tied up in immense bags. As they are tossed out on the 
floor, one would suppose that they contained coffee for 
merchandise, rather than heart-messages and treasures 
gone astray. The bags are immediately opened and the 
letters transferred to the assorting table, where they are 
classified by clerks. The foreign letters are separated 
from the domestic, and any irregularity in their trans- 
mission is noted. They are then counted, numbered and 
tied up into packages of one hundred each, and thrown 
into bins, whence they are withdrawn in the order of 
the date of their reception, and transferred to the open- 
ing table to be hari-karied by our clergymen. 

Letters containing nothing, if possible, are returned to 
their writers. If they cannot be, they are thrown into 
the waste-basket. This waste-paper is not burned but 
sold — and averages to the Government a revenue of about 
$4,000 per year. With all his extravagances, this is but 
one of numerous ways by which Uncle Sam manages to 
turn an economical penny out of the carelessness and 
misfortunes of nephews and nieces. 



400 TEN" TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Letters containing anything, of the smallest value, are 
saved and registered under their different heads. Money, 
jewels, drafts, money-orders, receipts, hair, seeds, deeds, 
military-papers, pension-papers, etc., are all recorded and 
returned, if possible. A " money letter " has five different 
records before it leaves the Dead-Letter Office, and is so 
checked and counter-checked as to make collusion or 
abstraction almost impossible, in case any soul who sur- 
veyed it were fatally tempted. 

When the opener of a letter finds money, he immedi- 
ately makes a record of it. The next morning, the head of 
" the Opening Table " records in a book each letter found 
and recorded by each opener the day before. The letters 
are then taken from a safe, in which they were locked the 
night previous, and their contents recounted, to make 
sure of absolute correctness, before leaving the Opening 
Table. The money-letters, with the record of that day, 
are then handed over to the head of the Money Branch, 
where the letters recorded by the head of the Opening 
Table are certified and receipted. They are next in- 
dexed and delivered to the several clerks of the Money 
Branch, each receipting every letter he has recorded on 
the Index Book. He then records the letter and sends 
it to the writer, through the postmaster of the place 
where the party lives. The owner, on receiving the 
money, receipts for the same on a blank accompanying 
the letter, which he sends back to the Dead-Letter Office. 
The letters are again re-examined by two clerks, to see 
if the amounts are correct, who conjointly scrutinize and 
seal the letters. They are then registered to the different 
distributing offices, with all the precautionary checks of a 
registered letter. In time, the letter or a receipt from 



SECRETS OF THE DEAD-LETTEKS. 401 

the owner, through the postmaster, is returned. If a 
receipt is received, it is recorded, with date, as a final 
disposition of the letter. If the money is returned, it is 
so noted and recorded on a separate record kept for the 
purpose, that record showing, perpetually, how much 
money is on hand. If not claimed at the end of three 
months, the money is deposited in the Treasury of the 
United States, subject to the application of the owner. 
By this minute and exhaustive routine, every money- 
letter, and every cent which they contain, is absolutely 
accounted for — traced, refunded, and held. 

Drafts, deeds, checks, power-of-attorney and wills are 
recorded, and sent through postmasters to their owners, 
they returning receipts for the same. 

Foreign letters are assorted, the amounts due this and 
other countries recorded, and a system of accounts kept, 
showing, by a list returned with the letters, a correct state- 
ment. Foreign letters are returned weekly, to England, 
Germany and the Netherlands. The liberal postage 
recently adopted by these countries has opened so large 
a correspondence, it involves more frequent returns. 

The Property-Branch is of a most miscellaneous char- 
acter. It involves the recording and returning of jew- 
ellery, and of almost every other article under the sun. 
Many of these it is impossible to return. These accu- 
mulate in such vast piles, it is necessary to dispose of 
them at auction, at least, as often as once in four years. 

At each sale, a complete catalogue of the articles is 
presented, and the proceeds are deposited in the United 
States Treasury. 

A room, leading from the Dead-Letter Office, lined 
with closed closets to its lofty ceiling, is the receptacle of 

26 



402 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

all these stranded treasures. When the custodian unlocks 
their doors and you behold what is shut within, you are 
lost in wonder as to what must be the conceived capacity 
of the Post-Office in the minds of your compatriots. 
Before your eyes, crammed into shelves, you see patch- 
work quilts, under garments, and outer garments; hats, 
caps, and bonnets ; shoes and stockings ; with no end of 
nicknacks and keepsakes ; " sets " of embroidery, baby- 
wardrobes, watches, and jewels of every description — 
though the greater proportion is of the " fire-gilt," " dollar- 
store " description. Many really beautiful pictures are 
retained, because not sufficiently prepaid. Some of these, 
sent as gifts, are left by the chosen recipients to be sold at 
auction — the postage often amounting to far more than 
the value of the picture. Many motley articles peer 
forth from their hiding-places ignominiously " franked," 
yet retained, the frank not being sufficient legal-tender 
to insure their triumphal passage to the place of final 
destination. Among these is an iron apple-parer. 

Many of these cheap treasures were precious keepsakes 
from the hearts which fondly sent them — under very un- 
intelligible superscriptions — to sweethearts whom they 
never reached. Some are tokens from beyond the seas, 
which came from a far-off land only to find the one 
sought — dead or living — gone, without a clue. 

During the war, tens of thousands of photographs were 
thus sent astray. The husband, the father, the brother, 
the son, under whose name they came — alas ! when they 
reached his regiment, he was not — the heaped-up trench, 
the unknown grave, the unburied dead — somewhere amid 
them all — he slept, and the memento of the love that 
lived for him, came back to this receptacle of the nation, 



WHERE THE DEAD-LETTERS GO. 403 

and here it is ! On a stand near the window, is an 
immense open book lined with photographs, all the photo- 
graphs of soldiers. With a tender hand, the Government 
gathered these pictures of its lost and unknown sons and 
garnered them here, for the sake of the living, who might 
seek their lost. Turning over the pages, we see many 
empty spaces, and find that friends coming here and 
turning over the pages tff this book have identified the 
faces of loved ones who perished in the war. Many of 
these are photographs of a poor character, (whose transient 
chemicals are already fading out,) which were taken on 
the field, and sent, by soldiers, home to mothers, wives, 
sisters and sweethearts. The chances of war are sufficient 
to account for their going astray of their objects and for 
their return here — where more than one tear-blinded wo- 
man has sought and found them, at last. 

To return to the dryer details of the Dead-Letter Of- 
fice, we find that all letters held for postage, all blank, 
unmailable, and hotel letters pass through a like process 
with the dead-letter, with the exception of the unmail- 
able letters, which come directly from the office with writ- 
ten lists, which are checked to see if the letters are all 
with the lists. These the opener counter-checks, marking 
the contents both on letter and list, to show that it was 
received and doubly opened. These lists, with their let- 
ters, are sent to the Return Branch. Here they are re- 
turned to their writers, and their lists are made to show 
the disposition of every letter. These lists are carefully 
filed and subject to re-perusal. The Return Branch, which 
is composed entirely of ladies, sends average dead-letters 
back to their writers at the rate of seven thousand a day. 
In this branch we find the application-clerk whose duty 



404 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

it is to trace letters, and to send such information to per- 
sons applying for letters as the records may show. In 
case of the loss of a valuable letter, the Department 
srjares no pains in its efforts to trace and find it. 

The Postmaster-General, in one of his recent reports, 
says of this branch of the Postal Service : 

"In the examination of domestic dead-letters, for disposition, 
1,736,867 were found to be either not susceptible of being re- 
turned, or of no importance, circulars, etc., and were destroyed 
after an effort to return them — making about 51 per cent, de- 
stroyed. The remainder were classified and returned to the 
owners as far as practicable. The whole number sent from the 
office was 2,258,199, of which about 84 per cent, were delivered 
to owners, and 16 per cent, were returned to the Department ; 
18,340 letters, containing $95,169.52, in sums of $1 and upward, 
of which 16,061 letters, containing $86,638.66, were delivered 
to owners, and 2,124, containing $7,862.36, were filed or held for 
disposition ; 14,082 contained $3,436.08, in sums of less than $1, 
of which 12,513, containing $3,120.70, were delivered to owners; 
17,750 contained drafts, deeds, and other papers of value, repre- 
senting the value of $3,609,271.80— of these 16,809 were restored 
to the owners, and 821 were returned and filed ; 13,964 con- 
tained books, jewellery, and other articles of property, of the es- 
timated value of $8,500 — of these 11,489 were forwarded for de- 
livery and 9,911 were delivered to their owners ; 125,221 con- 
tained photographs, postage-stamps, and articles of small value, 
of which 114,666 were delivered to owners ; 2,068,842 without 
inclosures. Thus of the ordinary dead-letters forwarded from 
this office, about 84 per cent, were delivered, and of the valuable 
dead-letters (classed as money and minor) about 89 per cent, 
were delivered. The decrease of money-letters received (about 
3,000) is probably owing to the growing use of money-orders 
for the transmission of small sums." 

In August, 1864, Hon. Montgomery Blair appointed 



THE MONEY-ORDER SYSTEM. 405 

Dr. C. F. Macdonald, now the Superintendent of the 
Money-Order Department, and J. M. McGrew, now Chief 
Clerk of the Sixth Auditor's office, commissioners to visit 
Quebec and examine the workings of the Money-Order 
System which has been in operation in Great Britain and 
Canada for several years. 

The system, as used by the British Government, was 
modified and simplified by the commissioners, and on the 
8th of November, 1864, the Money-Order System of the 
United States was inaugurated, with 138 offices authorized 
to issue and pay. 

During the part of the fiscal year commencing Novem- 
ber 8, 1864, and ending June 30, 1865, there were 74,277 
money-orders issued, amounting to $1,360,122.52 ; dur- 
ing next fiscal year ending June 30, 1866 — 138,297, 
amounting to $3,977,259.28 ; during next fiscal year 
ending June 30, 1867—474,496, amounting to $9,229,- 
327.72 ; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 1868 — 
831,937, amounting to $16,197,858.47; during next fis- 
cal year ending June 30, 1869 — 1,264,143, amounting to 
$24,848,058.93; during next fiscal year ending June 30, 
1870—1,675,228, amounting to $33,658,740,27; during 
the next fiscal year ending June 30, 1871 — 2,151,794, 
amounting to $42,164,118.03 ; during next fiscal year 
ending June 30, 1872—2,573,349, amounting to $48,515,- 
532.72. 

During the present fiscal year, which expired June 30, 
1873, the number of orders issued will reach 3,000,000, 
and the amount will be over $50,000,000. 

The above figures, in themselves, contain the history of 
the money-order system from its beginning to the pres- 
ent time. During the war one letter was received at the 



406 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Dead-Letter Office which contained $12,000. Rarely now 
does any sum inside of an envelope amount to $50. As 
a rule, any sum over $5 is sent by money order — at least 
by all persons who have any reasonable idea of what is 
absolutely safe. 

Charles Lyman, the Chief of the Dead-Letter Office, 
was born at White River Junction, Vermont, and moved 
to Montpelier, the capital of the State, in early life. He 
commenced business as a merchant, and continued in 
trade till April, 1847. 

In May, 1849, he was appointed Postmaster at Mont- 
pelier, by General Taylor, and was relieved from the 
office, at the close of the administration of President Fill- 
more. 

In March, 1861, he was appointed to a position in the 
Dead-Letter Office, and has continued his connection with 
the office, until the present time. During his administra- 
tion it has grown to be one of the most important branches 
of the postal service. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR — UNCLE SAM'S 
DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. 

Inadequate Accommodation in Heaven — Defects of our Great Public Build- 
ings — The Public Archives — Valuable Documents in Jeopardy — Talk of 
Moving the Capital — A Dissension of a Hundred Years — Concerning 
Certain Idiots — A Day in the Patent Office — The Inventive Genius of 
the Country — Aggressions of the Home Department — A Comprehensive 
Act of Congress — Seven Divisions of the Department of the Interior — 
The Disbursing Division — Division of Indian Affairs — Lands and Rail- 
roads — Pensions and Patents — Public Documents — Division of Appoint- 
ments — The Superintendent of the Building — The Secretary of the In- 
terior and his Subordinates — Pensions and their Recipients — Indian 
Affairs — How the Savages are Treated — Over Twenty-one Million of 
Dollars Credited to their Little Account — The Census Bureau — A Rather 
Big Work — The Bureau of Patents — What is a Patent? — A Self-support- 
ing Institution — A Few Dollars Over — The Use Made of a Certain Brick 
Building — Secretary Delano — An Objection Against Him — How Wick- 
edly he Acted to the Women Clerks — " The Accustomed Tyranny of 
Men" — Cutting Down the Ladies' Salaries — Making Places for Useful 
Voters — A Sweet Prayer for Delano's Welfare — Something about Del- 
ano's Face. 

IT has always been a mystery to me how Heaven could 
continue large enough for all the people who are try- 
ing to get into it, that is, if the human race is to keep on 
being born. 

I am equally puzzled about the internal spaces of our 
great public buildings. When designed, they were sup- 
posed to be ample for centuries to come ; but with the 
constant creation of new bureaus, and even of depart- 



408 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. 

ments, with the fast and never-ceasing accumulations of 
records in every branch of the Government service, not a 
public building in Washington is now large enough to hold 
the archives, or even the employes belonging to its own 
department. Already the city is filled with temporary 
buildings, in which the overflow of the various depart- 
ments have taken refuge. Even now, every public build- 
ing needs a duplicate as large as itself to hold its treas- 
ures, and to carry on fitly the intricate machinery of its 
routine service. The constant cry of " Capital moving " 
has not only prevented this, but has caused the precious 
records of the departments to be packed into precarious 
and insufficient store-houses. 

The public archives should all be stored in fire-proof 
buildings. The destruction of the titles to all the lands 
in the country sold by the Government would involve a 
loss greater than the cost of all Washington city. And 
yet, as they are stored at present, any morning you may 
hear that there is nothing left of them but ashes. 

What madness to talk of moving the Capital ! What 
idiots to breed another dissension of a hundred years as 
to where another Capital shall be, instead of making 
the most and best of the majestic one, bought at such 
cost, that already is ! 

Well, a day in the Patent-Office has caused this out- 
burst. This building was built for the protection and 
display of the inventive genius of the country. But that 
genius finds itself fearfully " cabined and confined," and 
almost crowded out by the elephantine proportions of 
the Home Department, which needs, almost beyond any 
other, a vast building of its own, all to itself. At first a 
single room was demanded for the Secretary of the Inte- 



INVENTIVE GENIUS " CORNERED." 409 

rior. The needs of his department were such, he has 
gone on annexing room after room of the noble Patent- 
Office, till its '/ inventive genius " finds itself crowded into 
a very small corner of the majestic building built with 
the proceeds of its own industry. 

March 3, 1849, Congress passed an act to establish the 
Home Department, and enacted that said new executive 
branch of the Government of the United States should be 
called the Department of the Interior, and that the head 
of said Department should be called Secretary of the 
Interior, and that the Secretary should be placed upon 
the same plane with other Cabinet officers. 

This act transferred to the Secretary of the Interior 
the supervisory power over the office of the Commissioner 
of Patents, exercised before by the Secretary of State ; 
the same power, over the Commissioner of the General 
Land-Office, held previously by the Secretary of the 
Treasury ; the same over the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 
which had been under the supervision of the Secretary 
of War ; the same over the acts of the Commissioner of 
Pensions, who had previously reported to the Secretary 
of the Navy ; also over the marshals and orders of taking 
and returning the census, previously managed by the 
Secretary of State; the same over accounts of marshals, 
clerks and officers of courts of the United States, previ- 
ously exercised by the Secretary of the Treasury. The 
same act relieved the President of the duty of supervising 
the acts of the Commissioner of Public Buildings, placing 
that gentleman under the directions of the Interior De- 
partment ; giving the Secretary control over the Board 
of Inspectors and the Warden of the Penitentiary of the 
District of Columbia. 



410 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

Thus, you see, the Department of the Interior was 
made up, at the beginning, of slices cut from each one of 
the other departments of the Government. Subsequent 
acts of legislation have added new duties to the Home 
Department. The Department of Justice ; the Depart- 
ment of Metropolitan Police; the accounts of marshals 
and clerks of the United States Courts, and of matters 
pertaining to the judiciary ; the discontinuance of the 
office of Commissioner of Public Buildings, and the 
assignment of his duties to the Chief Engineer of the 
Army, with the duties and powers heretofore exercised 
by the Secretary of State over the Governors and Secre- 
taries of the various territories. All have been trans- 
ferred to the Department of the Interior. Admission of 
indigent insane persons, resident in the District of Co- 
lumbia, to the Insane Asylum, also to the Columbia In- 
stitution for the deaf and dumb, and to the National 
Deaf-mute College, and of blind children to the Colum- 
bia Institution, all are only obtained through the Secre- 
tary of the Interior. 

The office of the Secretary of the Interior is divided 
into seven divisions, as follows : 

The " Disbursing Division," through which all moneys, 
appropriated for the entire service of the department, pass. 

The Division of the Indian Affairs ; having charge of 
matters pertaining to the Indian office, and the various 
Indian tribes. 

The Division of Lands and Railroads ; having charge 
of matters pertaining to the General Land-Office, and the 
construction, &c, of land-grant railroads. 

The Division of Pensions and Patents ; having charge 
of matters pertaining to those offices. 



THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. 411 

The Division of Public Documents ; having charge of 
the distribution of the public documents and the De- 
partment Library. 

The Division of Appointments ; having charge of all 
matters pertaining to the force of the department, the 
preparing, recording, etc., of Presidential appointments 
under the Interior Department. 

The Superintendent of the building ; having charge of 
all repairs, the oversight of the laboring force, heating 
apparatus, etc. 

The head of the Department is the Secretary of the 
Interior. His subordinates are the Commissioners of the 
Public Lands, Patents, Indian Affairs, and Pensions, and 
the Superintendent of the Census. The Secretary is 
charged with the general supervision of matters relating 
to the public lands, the pensions granted by the Govern- 
ment, the management of the Indian tribes, the granting 
patents, the management of the Agricultural Bureau, of 
the lead and other mines of the United States, the 
affairs of the Penitentiary of the District of Columbia, 
the overland -row tes to the Pacific, including the great 
Pacific Railways, the taking of the Census, and the direc- 
tion of the acts of the Commissioner of Public Buildings, 
the Insane Hospital for the District of Columbia, and 
the Army and Navy, is also under his control. 

The first Secretary of the Interior was Thomas Ewing, 
of Ohio, appointed by President Taylor ; and Columbus 
Delano, of Ohio, is the present Secretary. 

The General Land-Office was established as a branch 
of the Treasury Department by act of Congress, approved 
April 25, 1812, which authorized the appointment of a 
Commissioner, at a salary of $3,000 per annum, and the 



412 



TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 



employment of a Chief Clerk, and such other clerks as 
might be necessary to perform the work, at an annual 
compensation not to exceed, in the whole, $7,000. 

By the act of July 4, 1836, the office was reorganized 
and the force increased. The number of clerks now em- 
ployed is one hundred and fifty-four ; and even this force 
is not sufficient to meet the requirements of a constantly 
growing business. Upon the creation of the Interior De- 
partment, in 1849, the Land-Office was placed under its 
jurisdiction. 

The Commissioner of the General Land-Office is charged 
with the duty of supervising the surveys of # private 
land claims, and also the survey and sale of the public 
lands of the United States. At present this supervision 
extends to seventeen surveying districts and ninety-two 
local land-offices. 

The following table exhibits the progress of surveys 
and the disposal of public lands since the fiscal year, end- 
ing June 30, 1861: 



Fiscal Year 
ending 
June 30. 

1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 
1866 
1867 
1868 
1869 
1870 
1871 
1872 





2 2 




^ 


9 


58 


11 


54 


10 


53 


10 


53 


10 


61 


12 


62 


13 


68 


12 


66 


17 


81 


17 


83 


17 


92 



Cost of Survey. 



$219,000 00 

151,840 00 

172,906 00 

170,721 00 

186,389 88 

423,416 22 

325,779 50 

497,471 00 

560,210 00 

683,910 00 

1,019,378 66 



Number of Acres 
Surveyed, 



2,673,132 

2,147,981 

4,315,954 

4,161,778 

4,267,037 

10,808,314 

10,170,656 

10,822,812 

18,165,278 

22,016,607 

29,450,939 



Number of Acres 
Disposed of. 



1,337,922.00 
2,966,698.00 
3,238,865.00 
4,513,738.00 
4,629,312.00 
7,041,114.00 
6,665,742.00 
7,666,151.00 
8,095,413.00 
10,765,705.00 
11,864,975.64 



THE PENSION LIST. 413 

This shows an increase of the number of surveyors' 
general from nine to seventeen, and land-offices from 
fifty-eight to ninety-two, and an increase in the annual 
survey from 2,673,132 acres to 29,458,939 acres, and an 
increase in the number of acres disposed of from 1,337,- 
932 to 11,864,975.64, for the year ending June 30, 1872. 

The Land-Office audits its own accounts. It is also 
charged with laying off land-grants made to the various 
railroad schemes by Congress. The mines belonging to 
the Government are also in charge of this office. 

The Commissioner of Pensions examines and adjudi- 
cates all claims arising under the various and numerous 
laws passed by Congress, granting bounty-lands or pen- 
sions for military and naval services rendered the United 
States at various times. The Rebellion greatly increased 
the pension list. 

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs has charge of all 
the matters relating to the Indian tribes of the frontier. 
The Government has at sundry times purchased the lands 
of various tribes residing east of the Mississippi River, 
and has settled the Indians upon reservations in the ex- 
treme West. For some of these lands a perpetual annu- 
ity was granted the tribes ; for others, an annuity for a 
certain specified time ; and for others still, a temporary 
annuity, payable during the pleasure of the President or 
Congress. The total sum thus pledged to these tribes 
amounts to nearly twenty-one and a half millions. It is 
funded at five per cent., the interest alone being paid to 
the tribes ; this interest amounts to over two hundred 
thousand dollars. It is paid in various ways — in money, 
in provisions, and in clothing. The Commissioner has 
charge of all these dealings with the savages. 



414 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Prior to Act of Congress of June 30, 1834, organizing 
the " Department of Indian Affairs," Indian matters were 
managed by a Bureau, with a superintendent in charge, 
under the direction and control of the War Department, 
and under the organization, the department or office 
continued with the War Department, until March 3, 
1849, when Congress created the Department of the In- 
terior, and gave the supervisory and appellate power, ex- 
ercised by the Secretary of War in relation to the acts of 
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to the Secretary of 
the new department. 

A "Commissioner of Indian Affairs" was first author- 
ized by Act of Congress, dated July 9, 1832, and the same 
law required the Secretary of War to prescribe a new 
set of regulations as to the mode in which the business 
of the Commissioner should be performed. 

E. Herring was the first Commissioner, and his success- 
ors have been as follows : C. A. Harris, appointed in 
1836 ; T. H. Crawford, 1838 ; Wm. Medell, 1845 ; 0. 
Brown, 1849; L.Lee, 1850; G. W. Monypenny, 1853; 
J. W. Denver, 1857 ; C. E. Mix, 1858 ; A. B. Greenwood, 
1859 ; W. P. Dole, 1861 ; D. N. Cooley, 1865 ; L. V. 
Bogy, 1866; N. G. Taylor, 1867; ,E. S. Parker, 1869; 
F. E. Walker, 1871 ; and E. P. Smith, 1873. 

The Indian Department comprehended, under the 
new regulations provided for by the law of July 9, 1832, 
four superintendencies, thirteen agencies, and thirteen 
sub-agencies, having charge of about two hundred and 
fifty thousand Indians, inhabiting some of the States west 
of the Mississippi, and also what was then held to be 
" Indian Country," defined by the first section of the law 
of June 30, 1834, regulating trade and intercourse with 



THE INDIAN DEPAKTMENT. 415 

Indian tribes, to be " all that part of the United States 
west of the Mississippi and not within the State of Mis- 
souri and Louisiana, or the Territory of Arkansas, and, 
also, that part of the United States east of the Mississippi 
River and not within any State to which the Indian title 
has not been extinguished." 

By subsequent acquisition of territory from Mexico, 
the area of Indian country became greatly extended, with 
a consequent large addition to the Indian population 
within the jurisdiction of the Indian Department. In 
the beginning of the current year, the Department con- 
sisted of eight superintendencies, seventy agencies and 
special agencies, and three sub-agencies. At present 
there are four superintendencies, four having been abol- 
ished by act of Congress, February 14, 1873, providing in 
lieu thereof five Indian Inspectors, whose duty it is to visit 
every superintendency and agency, and examine into the 
affairs of the same, as often as once or twice a year, and 
to report their proceedings; sixty-eight agencies, nine 
special agencies and three sub-agencies, with an Indian 
population, approximately, of 300,000, exclusive of those 
in Alaska, estimated at between 50,000 and 75,000. 

In the Indian service there is also a Board of " Indian 
Commissioners," nine in number, authorized by act of 
Congress, approved April 10, 1869, men eminent for 
their intelligence and philanthropy, who serve without 
compensation, the object of the Commission being to co- 
operate with the President in efforts to maintain peace 
among the Indians, bring them upon reservations, relieve 
their necessities, and to encourage them in attempts 
at self-support. 

The Census Bureau is now a permanent branch of the 



416 TEN YEARS IN "WASHINGTON. 

Department of the Interior. It is in charge of a super- 
intendent, and is assigned the duty of compiling the statis- 
tics which constitute the Census of the Republic. This 
enumeration is made every ten years. Some idea of the 
magnitude of the task may be gained from the fact that 
the tabulation and publication of the census of 1870 were 
not completed in January, 1873. 

The Bureau of Patents is a part of the Department of 
the Interior, but is in all its proportions and features so 
vast and imposing, that it is almost a separate depart- 
ment, as, indeed, it must become erelong. It is in 
charge of a Commissioner of Patents, who is appointed 
by the President of the United States, by and with the 
advice and consent of the Senate. It is intrusted with 
the duty of granting letters patent, securing to the in- 
ventor the control of and the reward from articles bene- 
ficial to civilization. It was formerly a part of the Treas- 
ury Department, and is one of the best known branches 
of the Government. 

Patents are not, as some persons suppose, monopolies, 
but are protections granted to individuals as rewards for, 
and incentives to discoveries and inventions of all kinds 
pertaining to the useful arts. This Bureau is allowed to 
charge for these letters of protection only the cost of in- 
vestigating and registering the invention. It is a self-sup- 
porting institution, its receipts being largely in excess of 
its expenditures. 

If you have traced the many Bureaus of the Interior 
Department thus far, you have come to the conclusion 
that it needs a public building all to itself, and that it 
should be an immense one. A large brick building op- 
posite the Patent-Office, on G street, is already exclu- 
sively occupied by the Bureau of Education. 



THE SUPREME VILTUE OF A PUBLIC SERVANT. 417 

The present Secretary of the Interior is Hon. Columbus 
Delano, of Ohio, a man who has been long in public life, 
first as Member of Congress from Ohio, then as Commis- 
sioner of Internal Revenue, now as Secretary of the Inte- 
rior. I have but one objection to make to Mr. Delano in 
the position which he now holds. He found twelve-hundred- 
dollar-positions in his department filled, as they had been 
from the beginning, by women. He degrades them to nine- 
hundred-dollar-clerkships, to make place for his voters. 
Judging by the course he pursues, we may believe that he 
is of the same opinion as the Secretary of the Treasury, that 
" four hundred dollars per year are enough for any woman 
to earn," unless she should be a Delano ! I hope that 
Ohio will reward him by not giving him the desire of his 
heart and making him Senator, till he practices justice 
as the supreme virtue of a public servant. 

Columbus Delano has a face which nature never weak- 
ened by cutting it down to absolute fineness, but added 
to its power by leaving it a little in the rough. Iron- 
gray hair, shaggy eyebrows beetling over a pair of 
straight-forward, out-looking gray eyes, make the more 
prominent features of a face which you willingly believe 
in as that of a strong and honorable man. 



27 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE PENSION BUREAU— HOW GOVERNMENT PAYS ITS 

SERVANTS. 

The Generosity of Congress to Itself — How Four Hundred Acts of Con- 
gress were Passed — How Pensions have Increased and Multiplied — Sneer- 
ing at Red- Tape — The Division of Labor — Scrutinizing Petitions — A 
Heavy Paper Jacket — The Judicial Division — Invalids, Widows, and Mi- 
nors — The Examiner of Pensions — The Difficulties of his Position — Un- 
satisfactory Work — How Claims are Entertained and Tested — What is 
Recorded in the Thirty Enormous Volumes — How many Genuine Cases 
are Refused — One of the Inconveniences of Ignorance — The Claim-Agent 
' Gobbles up the Lion's Share — An Extensive Correspondence — How 
Claims are Mystified, and Money is Wasted — The " Reviewer's " Work — 
The " Rejected Files "—The "Admitted Files "—Seventy-Five Thou- 
sand Claims Pending — Very Ancient Claimants — The Bounty Land Di- 
vision — The Reward of Fourteen Days' Service — The Sum Total of 
what the Government has Paid in Pensions — How the Pensions are Paid 
— The Finance Division — The Largest and the Smallest Pension Office — 
The Miscellaneous Branch — Investigating Frauds — A Poor " Dependent " 
Woman with Forty Thousand Dollars — How " Honest and Respectable " 
People Defraud the Government — The Medical Division — Examining In- 
valids — The Restoration-Desk — The Appeal- Desk — The Final-Desk — The 
Work that Has Been Done — One Hundred and Fifty Thousand People 
Grumbling — Letter of an Ancient Claimant — The Wrath of a Pugna- 
cious Captain. 

COMPARED to the generosity with which it rewards 
itself, Congress doles out most scanty recompense 
even to the Government's most faithful and long-suffering 
servants. Nevertheless, that it does not neglect or ignore 
them altogether, the annals of the Pension Bureau accu- 
rately attest. 



HOW PENSIONS ARE GRANTED. 419 

The first Act promising pensions to those disabled by 
war, was passed in the next month after the Declaration of 
Independence, August 26, 1776. On September 16, 1776, 
specified grants of land were promised to those who should 
enter the service, and continue to its close ; and in case of 
their death, to their heirs. 

Under these early enactments, the mode prescribed by 
law, to decide who were entitled to pensions, was to leave 
the State Legislatures to decide who should justly receive 
pensions. Having decided, the State Legislatures paid 
the pensioners, and were reimbursed by the general Gov- 
ernment. 

Afterward, this method gave way to another, requiring 
the Judges of district, and circuit-courts, to decide the 
equity of the demand, and to pay it, as had formerly been 
done, by the Legislatures of the several States. These 
payments were not made, however, until after the lists re- 
ported by the Judges had been verified by comparison with 
the rolls on file in the War Department, when they were 
reported by the Secretary of War to Congress, and placed 
on the pension-lists, by a resolution of that body. This 
mode was found to be too slow in detecting frauds, and Feb- 
ruary 25, 1793, an Act was passed, prescribing rules to be 
observed by the courts in the investigation of claims, and 
providing that the evidence upon which the decision was 
based should accompany the report. This Act prevailed, 
with slight modifications, until March 3, 1819, when an Act 
was passed, authorizing the Secretary of War to place on 
the pension-rolls, without reporting the lists to Congress. 

This authority was exercised by the Secretary of War, 
until March 2, 1833, when a distinct Bureau of the Gov- 
ernment was established for the adjustment of pension 



420 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

claims. It was provided for in the section of a bill, which 
made an appropriation for the civil and diplomatic ex- 
pense of the Government, for the year. This section said : 
"A Commissioner of Pensions shall be appointed by the 
President and the Senate, who shall receive a salary of 
twenty-five hundred dollars, which is hereby appropri- 
ated." This office was perpetuated for many years by 
biennial enactments, the last providing that it should con- 
tinue until further legislation on the subject. 

Since the passage of the first Act, by the old Congress in 
1776, there have been over four hundred distinct Acts re- 
lating to pensions for military and naval services, and for 
bounty-land rewarding such services, enacted by Congress. 
Instead of the small pension-lists transmitted by the 
courts of the country, through the Secretary of War to 
Congress, the tens of thousands of pension-claims, pre- 
sented to the Government, under the various laws which 
relate to them, now require the constant services of more 
than three hundred clerks in the Pension Bureau, super- 
vised by the Commissioner of Pensions. 

It is the dual duty of this Bureau, to protect private 
interests, and to secure the enforcement of the law. The 
claims are infinite and often conflicting; the provisions of 
law manifold ; and people unfamiliar with the immense 
demand upon such an office, sneer or smile, or weep over 
the length of the "red-tape" routine, through which its 
cases are so often "long drawn out." Persons waiting 
outside the Bureau, can not comprehend the requirements 
or exigencies of a business demanding the employment 
of so large a force of actors, or touching the springs of 
so many public and private interests. Says one who 
knows : " Far better the delays of red tape, than the inex- 



"HINTS to cokkespondents." 421 

tricable confusion, and total inability to transact business, 
which would be the inevitable result of a business system 
less minute and stringent." 

The Pension Bureau is divided into four divisions, viz : 
the Mail Division, the Judicial, the Financial, and the 
Miscellaneous. 

The Mail Division is charged with the receiving, read- 
ing, distributing to the proper desks, all the mail. Every 
original application, every piece of additional evidence, 
every communication, of whatever nature, is stamped 
with the date of receipt, and, with the exception of let- 
ters of inquiry, they are entered on the records, which 
show from whom received, when received, and to whom 
delivered. 

"It requires careful examination of the papers, a thor- 
ough knowledge of the office, and the closest analysis, to 
determine the proper destination of each communication. 
Many writers are obscure, many misstate their business, 
through ignorance or carelessness, and to quickly compre- 
hend the import of all papers, requires a keen eye and a 
ready mind. 

"Persons communicating with the Office, should re- 
member this, and to insure a correct distribution of their 
mail, should, in all cases, indorse upon the outside of the 
envelope, the number of the claim referred to, the name 
of the claimant, and the nature of the claim. 

"In this Division, claims are also prepared for the files, 
by having a heavy paper jacket placed round them, upon 
which is indorsed the Act under which it is filed, the de- 
scription of the party claiming, their address, also the ad- 
dress of the attorney, if one appears in the claim." 

The Judicial Division is charged with an application of 



422 TEN TEAES IN" WASHINGTON. 

the law to the evidence, and the determining of the right 
of the applicant to the pension. This office is divided 
into three grand divisions — invalid, widows, and minors. 
The first embraces all claims preferred by surviving sol- 
diers ; the second, all claims based upon the service and 
death of soldiers and sailors ; the third, those of minors. 

An Examiner of Pensions does not sit upon ' a bed 
of roses — or, if he does, it is full of thorns. So various 
and minute are the provisions of law, applicable to the 
cases under his consideration, so numerous are the rulings 
of the office, and the decisions of the Heads of Depart- 
ments, and of the Bureau, with the opinion of the At- 
torney-General added, all bearing upon this claim, it 
demands the most exhaustive examination, the keenest 
discrimination, and the most wise judgment, to reach a 
final just conclusion. And when his conclusion is reached, 
it is not final. 

In the Judicial Division, are filed all pending claims. 
These files are arranged with reference to the initial let- 
ter of the soldier's surname, and are divided into sections 
proportioned to the magnitude of the letter of the al- 
phabet. Upon the receipt of jacketed claims from the 
mail division, the first step is to see if the party, making 
application, ever filed a claim before, and this is ascer- 
tained by examining the " original records." 

These records fill thirty enormous volumes, and contain 
three hundred and eighty-three thousand applications 
that have been filed under the act of July 14, 1862. All 
entries are made therein with reference to the first three 
letters of the soldier' s surname, and only by this subdi- 
vision of names, affording two thousand eight hundred 
combinations, can convenient reference to any given claim 



INVESTIGATING CLAIMS. 423 

be had ; and even when so divided, the examination of the 
greater combination requires considerable labor. For in- 
stance, in two hundred thousand entries under W. I. L., 
there will be three thousand two hundred and fifty en- 
tries; and under S. M. I. you will find two thousand seven 
hundred and fifty Smiths. If the result of this exam- 
ination affords no evidence of a prior application by the 
same person, after noting all other applications based upon 
the service of the same soldier, the claims are numbered 
in numerical order and placed upon the record, which in- 
cludes a full description thereof, and the recorded claims 
are then placed in the files, to await examination in the 
order of their receipt. 

When they are reached, the examiner's duties begin. 
He first searches for such recorded evidence as can be 
found in any of the Departments of the Government. 
From these he notes all omissions, and points unsupported, 
and calls upon the claimant, or his attorney, for corrobo- 
rative evidence of the statements made in the declaration. 
He is guided in his requirements by the hundreds of rul- 
ings applicable to the smallest details of the various kinds 
of claims. All the evidence furnished in response must 
comply with the minutest demand of the law ; the law of 
evidence as applied in courts, and the express require- 
ments of the law under which the pension is claimed, are 
both brought to bear in the consideration of the points to 
be met, and the testimony offered in proof. 

You will not be astonished to be told that very often 
they are not met, or that in thousands of just cases the 
testimony is unequal to the gradgrind requirements of 
the law. A want of a knowledge of the provisions of 
the law — more than of willful knavery — is the great 



424 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

acknowledged difficulty with which the Office has to con- 
tend. Many a poor sinner, who lost his leg or arm, or 
carries a bullet in him, received in his country's battles, 
knows all about the minus members, the battles, and 
the bullet, and not an atom about " the provisions of the 
law," or the inextricable windings of official red-tape. 
Because his knowledge is of so one-sided a character, he 
finds it no easy matter to get the governmental reward 
for that buried leg or arm ; and by the time all " the re- 
quirements of the law" have been slowly beaten into his 
brains, the greater portion of his pension is pocketed by 
the claim-agent who showed him how to get it. 

All these provisions and safeguards of the law are said 
to be necessary, to protect the Government against fraud- 
ulent claims. Perhaps they are ; but that makes them no 
less hard, or ofttimes unjust "to the soldier and widow" 
who, in writing a letter, are as ignorant as babies of " the 
requirements of the law." Under these requirements, 
and with the utter ignorance of common people of tech- 
nical terms, and judicial statements, it is not strange that 
" a large percentage of the evidence offered, is imper- 
fectly prepared." A great deal more is deficient in sub- 
stance, or suspected of fraud. 

The correspondence from this Division, stating objec- 
tions, requiring further proof, and elucidating doubtful 
points, amounts to hundreds of letters a day. The long 
delay inevitable, is said to be the fault of the system. 
" Ex-parie evidence is the criminal." "Were means af- 
forded for a cross-examination of all applicants and wit- 
nesses, these difficulties and delays would disappear. One- 
half of the amount now taken from the pockets of 
pensioners, to compensate agents for procuring their pen- 



"accepted" and "kejected." 425 

sions, would pay the entire cost of such a system, to say 
nothing of the thousands of dollars paid from the Treas- 
ury upon fraudulent claims, that would be saved." 

When the examiner has ended his researches, he pre- 
pares a brief of the evidence, on which he bases his ad- 
mission, or rejection, of the claim. He closes it with a 
statement of his decision, showing from what date, and 
at what rate admitted, or, if rejected, the cause therefor, 
and signs his name, as examiner. 

This action is entered in a record. The case is taken 
from out the file of pending claims, and is placed in the 
hands of a clerk, who is called the "Reviewer." He is se- 
lected for this task, for his superior judgment, and for 
his familiarity with the law, and the rules of office. He 
"begins again," goes over the entire action of the exam- 
iner, goes through the entire evidence, in order to be 
able to approve, or disprove, the examiner's decision. If 
he approves, the case passes on to the Chief of the Di- 
vision, for his approval, which, except in unusual cases, 
is pro forma. From his desk the case goes to the Cer- 
tificate Section, for issue. There it receives its certificate 
and approved brief, decorated with which it departs to 
the Commissioner's desk, there to receive his final and 
crowning signature, and the grand seal of the Depart- 
ment. If the claim is a rejected one, and its rejection 
receives the approval of the receiver, it is cast into the 
outer darkness of the "rejected files." Here it is subject 
to an appeal to the Secretary, and may be borne forth 
again to the light, upon the presentation of new and ma- 
terial evidence. 

After the triumphant claim has received its certificate, 
it is treated to a new coat of a wrapper, upon whose 



426 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

back a certificate-number, and its history, is endorsed. It 
is then entered upon the admitted records. After it has 
been reported to the Pension Agent, Finance Division, to 
the Third Auditor of the Treasury, and to the Second 
Comptroller, it is placed on the "admitted files." 

Seventy-five thousand pending claims are now on file 
in these two divisions. They are slowly reduced in num- 
ber, and the receipt of new claims equals the disposal of 
the old ones. This statement does not include the adjust- 
ment of claims filed under the act of February 14, 1871, 
granting pensions to survivors of the war of 1812, who 
served sixty days, and to their widows. Their claims 
have been organized into a separate division, in which 
a force of fifty clerks has been constantly employed 
since its organization, May, 1871. This division is known 
as the " 1812 Division," and strenuous efforts are made 
to reach very early decisions in all its cases, the extreme 
age of the applicants making it necessary-: — if their pen- 
sion is to reach them "this side of Jordan." 

In this division, the claims are carried through their 
entire process, from the application to the placing of the 
pensioner's name on the rolls. 

The Bounty-Land Division forms a part of the Judicial 
branch. Herein all claims for bounty-land, filed under the 
act of March 3, 1855, which is the latest general provision, 
are adjusted. The modus operandi of obtaining land-grants 
is nearly identical with the process of obtaining a pension. 

Under the act of 1855, all persons who served fourteen 
days, either in the army or navy, are entitled to one hun- 
dred and sixty acres, and those who were actually en- 
gaged in battle, though their services were less than four- 
teen days, are entitled to the same. 



THE PEtfSIONEKS OP GOVEKNMENT. 427 

Under the various laws governing these land grants, 
warrants representing 73,932,451 acres have been issued, 
which, estimated at $1.25 per acre, amounts to $92,415,- 
563.75, which, added to $313,170,412.77 that has been 
paid since the beginning of the Government, as pension, 
makes a total expenditure of $405,585,976.52, which has 
been paid in gratuities to the defenders of the Republic. 

Where the Judicial Branch ends in the certificate of a 
pension, the Financial Branch begins. The rolls reported 
by those divisions are entered in the agency registers, 
which are arranged to show payments for several years, 
and the agents' quarterly accounts of disbursements are 
compared with these registers, and errors noted. 

There are now upon the United States pension rolls the 
names of 232,229 pensioners, who are paid quarterly 
through fifty-seven pension agents. When we remember 
that the accounts of all these agents, for these tens of 
thousands of names, are adjusted and reported within the 
short space of three months, it is not difficult to realize 
the amount of labor involved. 

The Finance Division is charged with all correspondence 
with the pension agents, to suspend and resume payments, 
to drop from the rolls (in which case the auditor and con- 
troller must also be notified), the payment of accrued 
pensions to heirs and legal representatives ; restorations, 
under the act of July 27, 1868, where a pension has been 
unclaimed for three years ; the transfer of payments from 
one agency to another ; the issue of duplicate certificates 
in lieu of those lost or destroyed. All these, and many, 
many other things are required at the hands of the gen- 
tlemen employed therein. The act of June 8, 1872, 
granted increase to pensioners of the first, second and 



428 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

third grades ; and this Division, after the passage of the 
Act and before the quarterly payment of September 
4, following, received, examined and issued 9,237 certifi- 
cates granting the increase. Of the agencies disbursing 
pension-money, there are ten whose payments exceed 
$100,000,000 per annum. Of these, Boston is the largest, 
paying out more than $1,800,000. The smallest amount 
paid by any agency is that at Vancouver, Washington 
Territory, which disburses less than $2,500 per annum. 

The Miscellaneous Branch covers many features too 
minute to be brought into this sketch. Among the more 
important is its Special Service Division. This is occupied 
with the investigation of all claims in which fraud is sus- 
pected. It prosecutes and convicts all persons whose 
guilt is proved. Congress annually appropriates a con- 
siderable sum to pay the expenses of such investigations, 
which tends largely to lessen fraudulent practices against 
the Government. By means of this fund the Office is 
enabled to keep a large number of special agents em- 
ployed, who are charged with the investigation of all sus- 
pected frauds perpetrated within their respective districts. 

This division requires clerks who are thoroughly familiar 
with all laws which the Office is called upon to execute, as 
well as a general knowledge of the criminal laws of each 
State. Its efforts are : first, to secure the pensioner in 
all his rights ; second, to prosecute all persons where it is 
thought a conviction can be had ; and third, to secure a 
return to the Government of all money unlawfully ob- 
tained. The amount saved in reducing pensions illegally 
rated, in dropping from the rolls those found not to be 
entitled, and in sums refunded, largely exceed the cost of 
the work, while the effect upon the public is beneficial in 



THE MEDICAL DIVISION. 429 

deterring others from criminal practices. Cases have been 
found which were allowed on the clearest proof of de- 
pendence upon the part of mothers of soldiers, where an 
investigation proved that that same dependent mother 
owned property in her own right to the amount of forty 
thousand dollars ! 

Such cases are not confined to the classes usually en- 
gaged in unlawful acts. Nothing is more remarkable 
than the number of persons — in the average transactions 
of life deemed honest and honorable — who are ready and 
eager, under one pretext or another, to " gouge " and de- 
fraud the revenues of the Government; and these per- 
sons are by no means confined to the seekers of pensions, 
but may be found every day in the highest class that can 
reach the hard-earned treasure of the National Treasury. 

The Medical Division of the Pension Bureau acts con- 
jointly with the Invalid Division in deciding the degree 
of disability of claimants for original, and the increase of 
invalid pensions. This division is supervised by medical 
gentlemen thoroughly trained in their profession. All 
invalid claims, after having been briefed by the examiner, 
and before passing into the reviewer's hands, are referred to 
this division. The Examining Surgeon makes a personal ex- 
amination of the applicant, and from his medical testimony, 
endorsed by the Chief of the Medical Division, the Chief of 
the Invalid Division bases his final opinion and action. 

The Restoration Desk is devoted to all claims, which are 
to be restored to the rolls, of parties who have been 
dropped for cause — principally those who were residents 
of the States in rebellion at the beginning of the late war. 
These are only placed upon the rolls upon incontestible 
proof of loyalty. » 



430 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

The Appeal Desk is the recipient of all cases in prepa- 
ration for reference to the Secretary, where an appeal 
from the action of the Office is taken. 

The Final Desk is the extensive one of the Commissioner 
of Pensions. 

From the beginning to the end of this busy Bureau, 
charged with the comfort, the very subsistence of so many 
bereaved and disabled fellow-creatures, the Commissioner 
must see all things, anticipate all wants, supply all needs; 
upon him rests the entire administration of this vast and 
potent Bureau. His position is not easy or his burden 
light. 

To fill so important a trust with honor, a Commissioner 
needs not only clear judgment and business training, but 
should also be a man of positive administrative talents, 
large information, thorough education, and broad, com- 
prehensive mind. 

These qualities are all possessed in a pre-eminent de- 
gree by the present Commissioner of Pensions. 

General J. H. Baker was born in Lebanon, Ohio, 1829. 
He is the son of a Methodist clergyman, and was gradu- 
ated from the Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, taking 
the Latin honors of a large class in 1852. He was Secre- 
tary of the State of Ohio during Chief-Justice Chase's 
term as Governor of that State. He moved to Minnesota, 
and was Secretary of the State when he resigned to take 
command of the Tenth Minnesota Volunteers. He served 
with distinction in the Indian expedition under General 
Sibley, and, on his return, was ordered South. At St. 
Louis he was placed in command of the post, and soon 
after was made Provost-Marshal General of the Depart- 
ment of Missouri. At the close of the war he became 



THE COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. 431 

Register of Public Lands in Missouri, and, resigning this 
position, in 1868 he returned to Minnesota, was candidate 
for the United States Senate, and defeated by a very small 
majority. In 1871, he was appointed Commissioner of 
Pensions. 

General Baker is a tall, commanding looking gentle- 
man, with dark hair, complexion and eyes. He is of 
nervo-motive temperament, quick, prompt, energetic in 
action, yet courteous and genial in his bearing to a very 
marked degree. 

Since the passage of the Act of July 4, 1862, nearly 
400,000 claims for pensions have been filed in and con- 
sidered by the Pension Office. Of course, in the exami- 
nation of so vast a number of cases, errors have been 
committed, matters of fact misinterpreted, and in many 
instances, through carelessness, ignorance and neglect, 
injustice has been done. 

The clerks of this office have always compared favor- 
ably, both in industry and capacity, with those of other 
Bureaus ; but, among so large a number, worthless and 
inefficient ones will be found, and the still greater evil of 
employing men who, though capable, take no interest in 
their official duties, and, through the want of that spur to 
well-doing, fail to make themselves of value to the Gov- 
ernment, and render aid to those whom the Office was or- 
ganized to protect and assist. The percentage of claims 
affected by these causes, small though it may have been, 
would amount to thousands in the aggregate, and these, 
distributed throughout the country, would give an en- 
larged color to their complaints, and lead the people to 
believe that the evil was general and unusual in its ex- 
tent. When we add to this class of complainants the 



432 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

150,000 who, in some shape, have had claims before the 
office for increase, arrears, etc., and which, not coming 
within the law under which they filed, were rejected, and 
who, not understanding what the law did provide, but 
deriving their information from unscrupulous agents who 
would not or could not instruct them in the matter, they 
feel seriously aggrieved, and loudly complain. Two de- 
pendent mothers, equally poor, and who were alike aided 
by their respective sons, reside in the same village. They 
apply for a pension for the services and deaths of their 
sons. The records of the War Department show that one 
of the soldiers died of a disease contracted in the service 
and in the line of duty, and that the other soldier died of 
a disease, though contracted in the service, yet it did not 
originate while he was in the line of duty. These are 
distinctions which neither this poor woman nor the com- 
munity can understand. Yet the claim last described 
must be rejected, as it is barred by the law. The whole 
community cries out about the great injustice practiced 
by the Pension Office, while, in fact, the law is responsible, 
and not the office. 

Again, invalid pensioners, suffering from a partial or 
total disability, are strongly urged, by their pecuniary in- 
terests, to believe that they are entitled to a total or spe- 
cial rating. They apply for increase, and are referred to 
an examining surgeon for a personal examination, and a 
report as to nature and degree of disability. The surgeon 
fails to conform to the applicant's estimate as to the ex- 
tent of his disability, and the claim for increase is rejected, 
and here is another case of " great injustice." 

Biennial examinations of all invalid pensioners are re- 
quired, except in cases of permanent disability. At such 



THE SORROWS OF THE " REJECTED. " 433 

times the surgeon finds they are partially or entirely re- 
covered from the disability that existed at the date of last 
examination, and notwithstanding the firm conviction of 
the pensioner that he is just as much disabled as ever, he 
is reduced or dropped. He at once joins the army of 
grumblers, and complains of injustice. 

The office acknowledges its imperfections, but respect- 
fully declines to admit the correctness of a tithe of the 
grievances reported. There is some show of injustice in 
the delay frequently experienced in the settlement of 
claims, and yet the Office is responsible to a slight degree 
only. As heretofore intimated, the system is largely ac- 
countable for this. The suspicion, warranted by expe- 
rience, attaching to every piece of testimony received, 
and necessitating a close scrutiny and reconciliation of the 
slightest discrepancies before final action can be had. 
The hundreds of points going to make up a case must be 
found in proofs, and the affidavits offered, three times out 
of five, fail to cover the point. 

Here is another cause for complaint. "The Pension 
Office called three times for the same evidence." It must 
be admitted that, some years ago, there was an entire 
neglect of correspondence. " Letters of inquiry," asking 
condition of claim and countless questions, arrived by 
thousands. Examiners were ambitious to pass (admit or 
reject) a large number of claims, during the month, and 
these letters proved nothing, and required time and labor 
to answer them, and were cast aside. This has all been 
changed by the present Commissioner, and these letters are 
confided to clerks who engage in nothing but correspon- 
dence, and who are required to keep their desks up to 
date ; and in this connection it is proper to add that a mag- 

28 



434 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

ical change has been made in the style and completeness 
of the letters. Some years ago, a fac-simile of the Commis- 
sioner's signature was stamped upon the out-going mail. 
Now, each letter is subjected to a careful review by the 
Chiefs of Divisions, and goes thence to the Commissioner's 
room for his signature and a frequent review by him; and 
the occasional return of a letter, with a sharp reminder, 
suffices to keep the letter writers on the alert. And this 
idea of a careful surveillance is not confined to correspond- 
ents, but it has been carefully impressed upon the whole 
force by frequent illustrations. By judicious, yet not 
burdensome reports, and by frequent reference thereto 
by the Commissioner, which is forcibly brought to the 
knowledge of a careless clerk, the employes have been 
taught that no trifling will be allowed. 

It has also been realized by the employes of this Bu- 
reau that merit is noted, and demerit will insure dis- 
missal. It is the policy of General Baker to hold his 
subordinates strictly responsible for the proper perform- 
ance of their individual duties, and to look to those hav- 
ing charge of others to secure the desired results, or to 
report the delinquent. The result of two years' growth 
in this direction has been gratifying. The increased in- 
dustry of the Office, the improvement resulting from a 
thoughtful and careful performance of its duties, and the 
elevation of the standard which all seeking appointments 
must come up to, and a careful weeding-out of the ineffi- 
cient ones, are rapidly tending to secure commendation 
from those having business with the Bureau, rather than 
censure. 

An aged claimant for a pension, who served in the war 
of 1812, residing in Elinois in December, 1871, wrote to 



A PUGNACIOUS PETITIONEE. 435 

the Office as follows : " Oh ! can it be true that I am 
going to get $100 ? That news is too good ! I'm so 
hungry, and I love coffee so, but I can't get any ! All I 
have to eat is corn-bread and sour milk. I can't believe 
that I am to get so much money, but I pray God it 
may be true." It is needless to say that this claim was 
made " special," and the octogenarian had " coffee " for 
his Christmas breakfast. 

A Captain B., of Havre-de-Grace, Maryland, a claimant 
for pension under Act of 1871, for services in the "War of 
1812, had his claim rejected, it appearing that he served 
less than sixty days, as required by that Act ; whereupon 
the Captain grew wrathy, and wrote as follows : 

" N. B. — Any man that will say that I was not a Private sol- 
dier in Capt. Paca Smith's company before the attack of the 
British on the City of Baltimore, and during the attack on said 
City in Sept., 1814, and after the British dropped down to Cape 
Henry, I say he is a dastard, a liar, and a coward, and no gen- 
tleman, or any man that will say that I got my Land-warrant 
from the Hon. Geo. C. Whiting, for 160 acres of Land, for 14 
days' services in Capt. Paca Smith's company, is the same, as 
stated above, and I hold myself responsible for the contents of 
this letter ; and if their dignity should be touched, a note of 

honor directed to Capt. Wm. B , Havre-de-Grace, Harford 

Co., Md., shall be punctually attended to. 

« Wm. B ." 



CHAPTER XL. 

TREASURES AND CURIOSITIES OF THE PATENT OFFICE 
—THE MODEL ROOM— ITS RELICS AND INVENTIONS. 

The Patent Office Building — Grace and Beauty of its Architecture — Four 
"Sublime" Porticoes — A Pretty Large Passage — The Model Room — 
" The Exhibition of the Nation " — A Room two hundred and seventy Feet 
in Length — The Models — Recording our Name— Wonders and Treasures 
of the Room — Benjamin Franklin's Press — Model Fire-Escapes — Wonder- 
ful Fire-Extinguishers — The Efforts of Genius— Sheep-Stalls, Rat-Traps, 
and Gutta Percha — An Ancient Mariner's Compass — Captain Cook's 
Razor — The Atlantic Cable — Original Treaties — The Signatures of Em- 
perors — An Extraordinary Turkish Treaty — Treasures of the Orient — 
Rare Medals — The Reward of Major Andre's Captors — The Washington 
Relics — His Old Tent — His Blankets and Bed-Curtain — His Chairs and 
Looking-Glass — His Primitive Mess-Chess and old Tin Plates — The Old 
Clothes of the " Father of His Country " — Military Relics of Well-known 
Men — Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence — Washington's 
Commission — Model of an Extraordinary Boat — Abraham Lincoln as an 
Inventor— The Hat Worn on the Fatal Night— The Gift of the Tycoon— 
The Efforts of Genius — A Machine to Force Hens to Lay Eggs — A Hook 
for Fishing Worms out of the Human Stomach — The Library of the 
Patent Office. 

THE lawful fees for issuing patents having accumu- 
lated into a considerable fund, Congress added an 
appropriation, and directed that the whole amount should 
be invested in a new building to be called the Patent 
Office. 

From that double fund has arisen the majestic struc- 
ture which, next to the Capitol, is the most august building 
in Washington. The southern front of the Treasury is 
of superlative beauty, and from several other points its 



THE PATENT-OFFICE BUILDING. 437 

architectural grace cannot be surpassed; but its whole 
effect is marred by the dingy, unbroken outline of its 
Fifteenth-street side. The advantage of the Patent- 
Office is, that from any point which you choose to survey 
it, it impresses you as supremely grand. Occupying two 
blocks, or an entire public square, standing upon a promi- 
nence, it spreads and towers into space incomparable in 
mass and majesty. You may approach it from four oppo- 
site directions, and on each side you lift your eyes <to four 
sublime porticoes towering before you. They are sup- 
ported by double rows of Doric columns, eighteen feet in 
circumference, made of gleaming crystallized marble. The 
entire building is of pure Doric architecture, strong, simple 
and majestic. Its southern front is an exact copy of the 
Pantheon at Rome, and the eastern portico is modelled 
after that of the Parthenon at Athens. 

The length of the building, from Seventh to Ninth 
streets, is 410 feet, and its width, from F to G streets, 275 
feet. Its original design was made by Mr. William P. 
Elliot, at that time surveyor of the City of Washington. 
The plan was largely executed by Mr. Mills, architect of 
Public Buildings; while the grand northern portico has 
been consummated under the superintendence of Mr. Ed- 
ward Clark, the present architect of the Capitol. 

We enter the eastern door of the basement-story, into 
a spacious passage running from east to west, the whole 
length of the building. Through it, large-wheeled ma- 
chines can be drawn. On each side of this hall are rooms 
for the deposit of fuel, large and heavy models and de- 
partment offices. In the centre springs a semi-circular 
stone staircase, with three flights of steps, which ascend to 
the second, third and last story. The corridor in the first 



438' TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

story is like the one that we entered below, and on each 
side of the hall, doors open into commodious apartments 
for the accommodation of the commissioners, examiners, 
clerks, etc. 

Ascending the stone staircase, we come to the Model 
Room — par excellence, the Exhibition Room of the nation. 
For architectural simplicity and space, and the purpose 
for which it was designed, it is unsurpassed in the whole 
world. Standing here, we look down a vista two hundred 
and seventy-four feet in length, and its perspective is 
enchanting to the sight. A double row of stone columns 
supports a succession of brick arches, finely proportioned, 
and corresponding in depth with the rooms below. The 
floor is paved with tessellated stone, and the light streams 
in from numerous windows on each side. 

The models and other articles are arranged in glass 
cases on each side of the room, leaving ample space in 
the centre for promenading. There are two rows of 
cases, one above the other — the upper row being placed 
within a light gallery of iron, reached by iron stairways, 
and extending entirely round the east, north and west 
halls. The ceiling is supported by a double row of pil- 
lars, which also act as supports to the galleries, and both 
the walls and ceiling are finished in marble and frescoes. 

Entering, we find a large register, with pens and ink, 
at the right of the door, in which we may record our 
name and the date of our visit, if we please. 

The first case on the right of the entrance contains 
Benjamin Franklin's press, at which he worked when a 
journeyman-printer in London. It is old and worm- 
eaten, and is only held together by means of bolts and 
iron plates, and bears but little resemblance to the mighty 



CURIOSITIES AND INVENTIONS. 439 

machines by which the printing of to-day is done. Then 
come models of "fire-escapes," some of which are curiosi- 
ties and well worth studying. The impression left by 
the majority, however, is that if they constitute one's only 
hope of escape, in case of fire, an old-fashioned headlong 
leap from a window may just as well be attempted at once. 

Near by are the models of those inventive geniuses 
who have attempted to extinguish conflagrations by dis- 
charging a patent cartridge into the burning mass. The 
guns, from which the cartridges are thrown, are most 
remarkable in design. 

Then follow tobacco-cutting machines, of various kinds, 
all sorts of skates, billiard-table models, ice-cutters, bil- 
liard-registers, improved fire-arms, and toys, of different 
designs, among which is a most ingenious model of a 
walking-horse. Having reached the end of this row of 
cases, we cross over to the south side of the hall. The first 
cases contain models of cattle and sheep-stalls, vermin 
and rat-traps, and are followed by a handsome display of 
articles in gutta percha, manufactured by the Goodyear 
Company. 

In the bottom of one of the cases is an old mariner's 
compass of the year 1604, presented by Ex-Governor 
Wise, of Virginia, then United States Minister to Brazil, in 
the name of Lieutenant Sheppard, U. S. N. The ticket 
attached to the compass is written in the bold, running 
hand of the ex-rebel statesman. Near by is a razor 
which belonged to the celebrated navigator, Captain Cook. 
It was recovered from the natives of the island upon 
which he was murdered, and is hardly such an instrument 
any of those who behold it would care to use. A piece 
of the Atlantic cable is just below it. 



440 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

Several of the cases following contain the original 
treaties of the United States with foreign powers. They 
are written upon heavy sheets of vellum, in wretchedly 
bad hands, and are worn and faded. All, save the treaties 
with England and the Eastern nations, are written in 
French, and are all furnished with a multiplicity of red 
and green seals ; the first is the treaty with Austria, and 
bears the weak, hesitating signature of Francis I. The 
signature of Alexander I., attached to the first Russian 
treaty, has more character in it. The treaty of peace with 
England, in 1814, which ended our second war with that 
power, bears the signature of the Regent, afterwards 
George IV. The treaty of 1803, with the Republic of 
France, is signed "Bonaparte," in a nervous, sprawling 
hand. Bernadotte's smooth and flowing hand adorns 
the first treaty with Sweden. 

The original treaty with Turkey is a curious document. 
It consists of a number of long slips of parchment, covered 
with columns of Turkish characters. Near by it hangs a 
bag, in which it was conveyed to this country. The bag 
is its legal covering, or case, and is provided with a huge 
ball of red wax, by way of a seal. Next to it is the first 
treaty of alliance with France — the famous one of 1778 — 
which gave the aid of the French king to the cause of 
the suffering and struggling States of the new republic. 
It is signed by the unfortunate Louis XVI. The " Louis " 
is written in a round, phlegmatic hand ; but the lines are 
delicate, as if the pen did not press the paper with the 
firmness of a strong will. The French treaty, of 1822, 
bears the autograph of Louis XVIII. ; and that of 1831, 
the signature of Louis Phillippe. Don Pedro I., Emperor 
of Brazil, has affixed his hand to the Brazilian treaty, 



KELICS OF GEOKGE WASHINGTON. 441 

and the name of Ferdinand (the last, and least) is affixed 
to that of Spain. 

In the glass cases with the treaties are several Oriental 
articles, — a Persian carpet and horse-cover, presented to 
President Van Buren, by the Iman of Muscat ; and two 
magnificent rifles, presented to President Jefferson, by 
the Emperor of Morocco. These rifles are finished in the 
highest style of Eastern art, and are really beautiful. In 
the same cases are collections of medals, some of European 
sovereigns, and others of American celebrities. Among 
them is a copy of the medal, awarded by Congress, to the 
captors of Major Andre. Near these are several splendid 
Eastern sabres, presented by the great Ali Pacha, the 
Bey of Egypt, to Captain Perry and the officers of the 
U. S. ship-of-war, Concord, at Alexandria, (Egypt,) in 
1832. 

The next cases contain the "Washington relics, which 
are amongst the greatest treasures of the nation. They 
consist of the camp-equipage, and other articles used by 
General "Washington, during the Revolution. They are 
just as he left them at the close of the war, and were 
given to the Government, for safe keeping, after his death. 
Here are the tents which constituted the head-quarters, in 
the field, of the great soldier. They are wrapped tightly 
round the poles, just as they were tied when they were 
struck for the last time, when victory had crowned his 
country's arms, and the long war was over. Every cord, 
every button and tent-pin is in its place, for he was care- 
ful of little things. His blankets and the bed-curtain, 
worked for him by his wife, and his window-curtains, are 
all well preserved. His chairs are perfect, not a round 
being broken ; and the little square mirror in his dressing- 



442 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON, 

case is not even cracked. The wash-stand and table are 
also well kept. His knife-case is filled with plain horn- 
handle knives and forks, which were deemed "good 
enough for him/' and his mess-chest is a curiosity. It is 
a plain wooden trunk, covered with leather, with a com- 
mon lock, the hasp of which is broken. It is divided by 
small partitions of thin wood, and the compartments are 
provided with bottles, still stained with the liquids, tin 
plates, common knives and forks, and other articles per- 
taining to such an establishment. 

In these days of luxury, an ordinary sergeant would not 
be satisfied with so simple and plain an establishment. 
His cooking utensils, bellows, andirons, and iron money- 
chest, all of which went with him from Boston to York- 
town, are in the same case, from the side of which 
hangs the suit of clothes worn by him upon the occasion 
of his resignation of his commission as Commander-in- 
Chief, at Annapolis, in 1783. A hall lantern, and several 
articles from Mount Vernon, a " travelling secretary," 
Washington's sword and cane, and a surveyor's compass, 
presented by him to Captain Samuel Duvall, the surveyor 
of Frederick county, Maryland, are in the same case, as 
are also a number of articles taken from Arlington House, 
and belonging formerly to the Washington family. 

A coat worn by Andrew Jackson, at the battle of New 
Orleans, and the war-saddle of the Baron De Kalb, a 
bayonet used by one of Bradclock's soldiers, and found on 
the fatal field upon which that commander met his death- 
wound, together with the panels from the state-coach of 
President Washington, make up the collection. The 
original draft of the Declaration of Independence, with 
the signatures of the Continental Congress attached, is 



CUEIOUS INVENTION OP ABKAHAM LINCOLN. 443 

framed and placed near the Washington case. It is old 
and yellow, and the ink is fading from the paper. Near 
it hangs Washington's Commission as Commander-in- 
Chief of the American army, bearing the characteristic 
signature of John Hancock, President of the Continental 
Congress. 

In the same case is a plain model, roughly executed, 
representing the frame-work of the hull of a Western 
steamboat. Beneath the keel is a false bottom, provided 
with bellows and air-bags. The ticket upon it bears the 
memorandum, "Model of sinking and raising boats by 
bellows below. A. Lincoln, May 30, 1849." 

By means of this arrangement, Mr. Lincoln hoped to 
solve the difficulty of passing boats over sand-bars in the 
Western rivers. The success of his scheme would have 
made him independently wealthy, but it failed, and, 
twelve years later, he became President of the United 
States. During the interval, the model lay forgotten in 
the Patent Office, but, after his inauguration, Mr. Lin- 
coln got one of the employes to find it for him. After 
his death, it was placed in the Washington case. 

The opposite case contains another memento of him — 
the hat worn by him on the night of his assassination. 

In a couple of cases, filled with machinery for making 
shoes, we see a number of handsome silk robes and Jap- 
anese articles, of various kinds, presented to Presidents 
Buchanan and Lincoln, by the Tycoon of Japan. The 
remainder of the hall is filled with models of machines 
for making leather harness and trunks, models of gas and 
kerosene oil apparatuses, liquor distilleries, machines for 
making confectionery, and for trying out lard and fat. 
Also, methods of curing fish and meat, and embalming 



444 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

the dead. A splendid model of a steel revolving tower, 
for harbor defence, stands near the door, and is one of the 
most conspicuous ornaments of the room. The other 
halls are devoted exclusively to models of patented ma- 
chinery, and other inventions. The cases above and be- 
low are well filled ; models of bridges span the spaces 
between the other cases, and those of the larger machines 
are laid on the floor of the hall. 

Models of improved arms, clocks, telegraphs, burglar 
and fire alarms, musical instruments, light-houses, street 
cars, lamps, stoves, ranges, furnaces, peat and fuel-ma- 
chines, brick and tile-machines, sewing-machines, power- 
looms, paper-making machinery, knitting-machines, ma- 
chines for making cloth, hats, spool cotton, for working 
up hemp, harbor cleaners, patent hooks-and-eyes, buttons, 
umbrella and cane-handles, fluting-machines, trusses, medi- 
cal instruments of gutta percha, corsets, ambulances and 
other military establishments, arrangements for exclud- 
ing the dust and smoke from railroad cars, railroad and 
steamboat machinery, agricultural and domestic machin- 
ery of all kinds, and hundreds of other inventions, line 
these three immense halls. Among the most remarka- 
ble is a machine to force a hen to lay eggs, and a silver 
worm hook, invented to fish worms out of the human 
stomach. 

A large library, of great value, is attached to the Patent 
Office, containing many volumes of the highest scientific 
value. Under judicious arrangement, a collection already 
rich and ample is forming, of every work of interest to 
the inventors, and that new, increasing, important class 
of professional men — the attorneys in patent cases. Upon 
its shelves may be found a complete set of the reports of 



A SYSTEM OF EXCHANGE. 445 

the British Patent Commissioners, of which there are only 
six copies in the United States. The reports of French 
patents are also complete, and those of various other coun- 
tries are being obtained as rapidly as possible. A system 
of exchanges has been established, which employs three 
agents abroad ; and, in addition to various and arduous 
duties, the librarian annually dispatches several hundred 
copies of the reports. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

THE BUREAU OF PATENTS— CRAZY INVENTORS AND 
WONDERFUL INVENTIONS. 

Patent-Rights in Steamboats — Origin of Copyright and Patent-Laws — Con- 
gress Settles the Matter — A Board of " Disinterested, Competent " Per- 
sons — Destruction of the Patent-Office by Fire — The New Building — 
The Corps of Examiners — The Commissioner's Speech — Twenty Thou- 
sand Applications per annum — Fourteen Thousand Patents Granted in 
One Year — Wonderful Expansion of Inventive Genius — " The Universal 
Yankee " — Second-hand Inventions — Where the Inventions Come from — 
Taking Out a Patent for the Lord's Prayer — A Patent for a Cow's Tail 
— A Lady's Patent — Hesitating to Accept a Million Dollars — How Pa- 
tentees are Protected — The American System — What American Inventors 
Have Done, and What They Have n't — The First Superintendent — The 
Present Commissioner — Exploits of General Legett — His Efficiency in 
Office — The Inventor Always a Dreamer — Perpetual Motion — The Inven- 
tion of a D. D. — His Little Machine — " Original with Me " — Silencing 
the Doctor — A New Process of Embalming — A Dead Body Sent to the 
Office — Utilizing Niagara — A Generous Offer — An Englishman's Inven- 
tion — Inventors in Paris — How to Kill Lions and Tigers in the United 
States with Catmint — A Fearful Bomb-shell — Eccentric Letters — Amus- 
ing Specimens of Correspondence. 

WITH the settlement of the English colonies in 
America came a great many English customs and 
laws, and among those adhered to was that of granting 
patents or passing special Acts for the protection of in- 
ventors. 

In 1728, the Legislature of Connecticut granted the 
exclusive right of practicing the business or trade of 
steel-making, provided the petitioners improved the art 



ALL ABOUT PATENTS. 447 

to any good and reasonable perfection within two years. 
In 1785, the State of Maryland passed an act giving to 
one James Rumsey the exclusive right to construct, em- 
ploy and navigate boats of an improved construction, to 
run against the current of rapid rivers. In 1787, an act 
was passed vesting the exclusive right of propelling boats 
by steam and water for a limited time. In this year a 
number of acts were passed to protect inventions of ma- 
chines for ruff-carding-belts, grinding flour, &c, and in 
1789, one for the protection of a hand fire-engine in New 
Hampshire was enacted. 

The founders of the Constitution saw the advantages 
to be derived from protecting the useful arts and sciences, 
and we find in Article 1, Section 8, the authority and 
power given Congress " to promote the progress of science 
and the useful arts by securing, for a limited time, to 
authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respec- 
tive writings and discoveries," etc. ; " to make all laws 
which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into 
execution the foregoing powers." Accordingly, Con- 
gress, in 1790, immediately after the ratification of the 
Constitution, found it necessary and thought it beneficial 
to enact a statute which authorized the issue of a patent 
to inventors and discoverers of any useful manufacture, 
engine, machine, and those who should devise any im- 
provement thereon not before known or used. 

The application, consisting of a clear description of the 
invention, was at that time made to the Secretary-of-State, 
and the Attorney-General of the United States. If 
such application was found to be new, a patent was 
issued by authority of any two persons enumerated, at- 
tested by the signature of the President of the United 



448 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. 

States, who granted to the inventor the exclusive right 
of making, constructing, using, or vending to others to 
be used, the invention or discovery, for the term of four- 
teen years. 

As the nation increased in power and talent, this Act 
was modified as the necessities of the time required. 
Abuses crept in, the most noted of which was the grant- 
ing and issuing of a great many patents without any 
record being kept to indicate that such patents were ever 
granted. This was caused by lack of organization and 
want of proper assistance. The Executive and Members 
of the Cabinet, having other duties to perform, neglected 
the proper examination of applications, and the system 
degenerated into as bad a one as the English. 

This Act, with the amendment, was, in 1836, swept 
from the statute books, and the Patent-Office was estab- 
lished on a surer basis, with an organization of a Com- 
missioner, Chief Clerk, an Examiner, a Draughtsman, and 
some five clerks to conduct the examination and issues 
of applications. As the decisions of the Commissioner, 
who was then presumed to examine all applications, was 
not always impartial and right, an appeal was allowed 
to a Board composed of three disinterested and compe- 
tent persons, who were appointed by the Secretary of 
State, as occasion required. 

The Patent-Office Building, which was at that time 
situated on the present site of the General Post-Office, 
was completely destroyed by fire in December, 1836, 
and all models, drawings and records were consumed. 
Congress appropriated money, and issued circulars di- 
rected to all who were thought to be interested in the 
restoration. 



INGENUITY TKIUHPHANT. 449 

The majority of the patentees sent in duplicates of 
their papers and models, but many were never heard 
from, and for this reason the office is unable to present a 
complete record of the grants. After the fire, the busi- 
ness of the Office was conducted in the City Hall build- 
ing until the present building was erected for the Patent- 
Office, a few years later. In 1849, the Office was placed 
under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior or 
Home Department, where it now remains. 

The fostering of invention encouraged home manufac- 
tures, one of the results most eagerly sought, after the 
war with Great Britain. So active became the inventive 
genius and so prolific of results, that Congress was com- 
pelled, from time .to time, to increase the examining 
corps, and the little band of seven persons, who occu- 
pied the contracted rooms in the City Hall, has expanded 
into a corps of eighty examiners and assistants, more 
than two hundred clerks and other officials, all under 
the control of a Commissioner and an Assistant-Com- 
missioner. 

The grant of one thousand patents in 1836, when the 
office was first regularly organized, has enlarged into one 
hundred and sixty thousand at the present time. And 
the latter number is scarcely two-thirds of the number 
of applications. With this enormous increase followed 
a corresponding labor and intricacy in examining so large 
a number of applications, but so perfectly has the system 
been developed, that very few mistakes are made in the 
way of wrongfully granting patents. 

Hon. S. S. Fisher, United States Commissioner of Pa- 
tents, before the American Institute, New York City, 
September 28, 1869, made an eloquent address concern- 

29 



450 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

ing the American system of granting patents, from which 
I make the following extracts : 

" The great Patent Act of 1836 established what is now dis- 
tinctively the American system in regard to the grant of letters- 
patent. 

"In the Patent-office, under the act of 1836, the Commis- 
sioner and one examining-clerk were thought to be sufficient 
to do the work of examining into the patentability of the two 
or three hundred that were offered ; now sixty-two examiners 
are over-crowded with work, a force of over three hundred em- 
ployes is maintained, and the applications have swelled to over 
twenty thousand per annum. This year the number of patents 
granted will average two hundred and seventy-five per week, or 
fourteen thousand a year. 

" In England and on the Continent all applications are pa- 
tented without examination into the novelty of the inventions 
claimed. In some instances the instrument is scanned to see if 
it cover a patentable subject matter, and in Prussia some exam- 
ination is made into the character of the new idea ; but in no 
case are such appliances provided, such a corps of skilled exam- 
iners, such a provision of drawings, models, and books, such a 
collection of foreign patents, and such checks to prevent and 
review error, as with us. As a result, an American patent has 
in our courts a value that no foreign patent can acquire in the 
courts of its own country. 

" The foreign patents of American inventors, that have been 
copies of patents previously granted in this country, are the best 
that are granted abroad. Many an English or French invention, 
that has been patented without difficulty there, has been stopped 
in its passage through our office by a reference to some patent 
previously granted in this country. In spite of our examination, 
which rejects over one-third of all the applications that are made, 
invention has been stimulated by the hope of protection ; and 
nearly as many patents will issue in the United States this 



LADY INVENTORS. 451 

year as in the whole of Europe put together, including the Brit- 
ish Isles. But a few days ago I took up a volume of Italian 
patents, when I was amused and gratified to find on every page 
the name of the universal Yankee, re-patenting there his Ameri- 
can invention. He is, I suspect, much the best customer in the 
Patent Office of United Italy. 

" We are an inventive people. Invention is by no means con- 
fined to our mechanics. Our merchants invent, our soldiers 
and our sailors invent, our school-masters invent, our profes- 
sional men invent, aye, our women and children invent. One 
man, lately, wished to patent the application of the Lord's 
Prayer, repeated in a loud tone of voice, to prevent stammering ; 
another claimed the new and useful attachment of a weight to a 
cow's tail, to prevent her from switching it while milking ; an- 
other proposed to cure worms by extracting by a delicate line 
and tiny hook, baited with a seductive pill ; while a lady pa- 
tented a crimping-pin, which she declared might also be used as 
a paper-cutter, as a skirt-supporter, as a paper-file, as a child's 
pin, as a bouquet-holder, as a shawl-fastener, or as a book-mark. 
Do not suppose that this is the highest flight that the gentle sex 
has achieved. It has obtained many other patents, some of which 
have no relation to wearing apparel, and are of considerable 
value. 

" Every inventor supposes that he has a fortune in every con- 
ception that he puts into wood and iron. Stealing tremblingly 
and furtively up the steps of the Patent Office, with his model 
concealed under his coat, lest some sharper shall see it and rob 
him of his darling thought, he hopes to come down those steps 
with the precious parchment that shall insure him a present 
competency and enrich his children. If he were offered a mil- 
lion in the first flush of his triumph, he would hesitate about 
touching it without sleeping over it for a night. Yet fourteen 
thousand millions would be a pretty heavy bill to pay from a 
treasury not over full. No commission could satisfy the in- 
ventor, and no price that we could afford to pay would take the 
place of the hope of unlimited wealth, which now lightens his 



452 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

toil We say, we cannot pay you in money, we will pay 

you in time. A new thought developed, explained, described, 
put on record for the use of the nation — this is the one side. 
The right to the exclusive benefit of this new thought, for a lim- 
ited time, and protection in that right, this on the other. This 
is the patent system. A fair contract between the inventor 
and the public. 

"The inventor's best security is to take out a patent. 

" To secure this fair dealing, we have on the one side the 
Patent Office, with its examiners, its drawings, its models, its 
books and its foreign patents, to scan and test the invention. 

On the other side we have the courts of law to protect the 
inventor and punish the thief. It is impossible that these in- 
strumentalities should do their work imperfectly. This is the 
American system. Under its protection great inventions have 
been born, and have thriven. It has given to the world the 
steamboat, the telegraph, the sewing-machine, the hard and soft 
rubber. It has reconstructed the loom, the reaping-machine, 
and the locomotive. It has won from the older homes of the 
mechanic arts their richest trophies, and like Columbus, who 
found a new world for Castile and Leon, it has created new arts 
in which our nation has neither competitive or peer." 

The first Superintendent of the Patent Office was Doc- 
tor W. Thornton, a gentleman of great attainments, who 
held his position for many years. The present Commis- 
sioner of Patents is General Mortimer D. Leggett, born 
of Quaker parents, in the State of New York, fifty years 
ago. At an early age, he went with his parents to tire 
Western Reserve, Ohio. He received an academical ed- 
ucation, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and at 
twenty-eight, was established in a flourishing business in 
Warren, Ohio. Jacob D. Cox, late Secretary of the In- 
terior, studied law with General Leggett, and ultimately 
became his partner under the firm name of Leggett & 



THE COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. 453 

Cox. General Leggett afterwards filled the position of 
Professor of Pleadings and Equity Jurisprudence, in the 
Ohio Law College, which he occupied till 1857, and 
later was called to become the Superintendent of Public 
Schools in the city of Zanesville, which his manage- 
ment made pre-eminent among the schools of the West. 
At the beginning of the war, he entered the field at the 
head of the Seventy-eighth Ohio. This regiment re- 
ceived its first baptism in the snow and sleet of Fort 
Donelson, and was under fire there. 

The executive and administrative ability of Colonel 
Leggett, as shown in the discipline and condition of his 
regiment, attracted the attention of General Grant, who 
made him Provost-Marshal of the post. He did his work 
so well, that he was repeatedly chosen again, and by the 
warm commendation of his chief, was made Brigadier- 
General. At the battle of Shiloh, and the siege of Cor- 
inth, General Leggett held advanced posts. In the 
siege of Vicksburg, General Leggett commanded the first 
brigade of Logan's Division — the brigade which, for its 
gallant service, was honored by being designated for the 
coveted distinction of marching first into the captured 
works. Soon after, he received command of this division, 
and was made Major-General, and with it, made with 
Sherman, the famous " march to the sea." 

There are many young men who live to say — that the 
most genial, beneficent, and valuable influence, exerted 
upon them during the toilsome campaign, and the dan- 
gerous periods of idleness in camp-life, was that of Gen- 
eral Leggett, who ever inspired patience by his unfailing 
good humor, persistent fidelity to temperance, both by 
precept and lofty example. He made many a dreary 



454 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

march seem like a picnic excursion ; and his quick, fear- 
less, yet sympathetic glance, often inspired the sinking 
heart at the moment of danger. Beyond this, he was a 
true soldier, in caring anxiously for the comfort of his 
soldiers, in enforcing rigid discipline, and in stimulating 
officers and men to excel in drill and all service. 

At the close of the war, General Leggett became Super- 
intendent and Business Manager of the engine works at 
Zanesville and Newark, Ohio, the largest establishment of 
the kind in the "West, where he remained, till he was called 
by the friend who remembered his brave services in 
the peril of war, — to the administration of one of the 
most important branches of the Government service in 
time of peace. He has already inaugurated one of the 
most potent movements toward the encouragement of 
the useful arts, ever made in this country — viz. : the pub- 
lication in popular form, and at low rates, of the Patent 
Office drawings and specifications. 

General Leggett has a clear red-and-white complexion, 
wide, open laughing blue eyes, and an aspect of fresh 
health which amounts to youth. His frame and brain 
are cast in herculean mould. He is a man of muscle, as 
well as mind — the former having been toughened by long 
geological foot-tramps through the mountains of Vir- 
ginia, as well as by the exposures of war, and of an all- 
time active life. 

The official chair of General Leggett has not proved 
too much for his better self, as it does for so many. He 
meets all who approach him with a smile and kind word, 
apparently not forgetting that in a republic the potentate 
of to-day may be the suppliant of to-morrow, and that 
at any rate, but one man at a time can be a Commis- 



THE DISCOVERER OF PERPETUAL MOTION". 455 

sioner of Patents. He brings to his official administration 
and decisions the same untiring industry, intelligence and 
integrity ; the same broad views, clear insight and devo- 
tion to duty, which in every previous sphere that he has 
filled have made his whole life an honorable success. 

With all its comprehensive cares, one side of the Com- 
missioner's official life tends to jollity, good digestion, and 
long life. In no other position in the world, probably, 
could a man discover how many crazy people there are 
outside of the lunatic asylum. The born inventor is 
always a dreamer. For the sake of his darling thought, 
he is willing to sacrifice himself, his wife and children, 
every thing but the "machine " growing in his brain and 
quickening under his eager hand. How often they fail ! 
How often the precious thought, developed into form, is 
. only a mistake — a failure. 

Sometimes this is sad — quite as often it is funny. The 
procession which started, far back in the ages, with its 
machine of " Perpetual Motion," long ago reached the 
doors of the American Patent Office. The persons found 
in that procession are sometimes astonishing. A doctor 
of divinity, well-known at the Capital, and not suspected 
of studying any machinery but that of the moral law, 
appeared one day in the office of the Commissioner. 

" I know I've got it," he said. 

"What, sir?" 

" Perpetual Motion, sir. Look ! " and he set down 
a little machine. " If the floor were not in the way, if 
the earth were not in the way, that weight would never 
stop, and my machine would go on forever. I know this 
is original with me — that it never dawned before upon 
any other human mind.'' 



456 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

So enthusiastic was the doctor, it was with difficulty he 
could be restrained from depositing his ten dollars and 
leaving his experiment to be patented. The Commis- 
sioner, quietly, sent to the library for a book — a history 
of attempts to create Perpetual Motion. Opening at a 
certain page, he pointed out to the astonished would-be in- 
ventor, where his own machine had been attempted and 
failed, more than a hundred years before. The reverend 
doctor took the book home, read, digested, and meditated 
thereon — to bring it back and lay it down before the 
Commissioner, in silence. No one has ever heard him 
speak of Perpetual Motion since. 

It would take a large volume, to record all the prepos- 
terous letters and inventions received at this office. A 
very short time since, a man sent a letter to the Patent 
Bureau describing a new process of embalming which he 
had originated. It was accompanied by a dead baby— 
" the model " which he requested should be placed in one 
of the glass cases of the Exhibition Room. He considered 
himself deeply injured when his request was refused. 

A letter was recently received by the Commissioner 
of Patents, from a man in Portsmouth, England, offering 
this Government the benefit of an invention of his own 
for utilizing water-power, so as to force the water to a 
great height when confined in reservoirs constructed for 
the purpose. He offers the invention free of all charge, 
because, he states, that it pains him to see " such mighty 
power as there is at the Niagara wasted." In addition, 
he offers his own services at the low rate of £1,000 per 
annum, to build and operate the invention. He says in 
his letter, that " if the mighty great power in Niagara 
was accumulated, it would move a great deal." He also 



HOW TO KILL THE AMERICAN LION. 457 

states that he " has a good plan for a velocipede and a 
bicicle, that he thinks would be a good thing for this 
country," but admits that "people in England don't like 
it." 

Referring again to his water-power, he claims that if 
this Government would build the road, he can take ships 
across the isthmus of Panama " in a box, water and all." 

The Commissioner recently received the following com- 
munication from the Legation of the United States : 

Paris, Dec. 3, 1872. 

" Sir : — A very large number of inventions and discoveries are 
submitted to this Legation, with the request that we shall trans- 
mit them to Washington. Most of them are, as you may sup- 
pose, worthless. We have had, for instance, serious plans pro- 
posed for the extermination of all the lions and tigers in the 
United States by the use of catmint, the modus operandi being 
to dig an immense pit, and fill it with this herb. The well- 
known love of the feline race for catmint will naturally induce 
the lions and tigers to jump into the pit and roll themselves 
upon it ; whereupon concealed hunters are to appear and 
slaughter the ferocious animals. 

" Another p]an is for the destruction of grasshoppers upon 
the plains by the use of artiller}^ it being perfectly well known 
that concussion kills insects. 

"A third is for the capture of a besieged city by the use of a 
bomb which, upon exploding, shall emit so foul a smell that the 
besieged will rush headlong from the walls, and fall an easy 
prey to the besiegers." 

The President of the United States receives many let- 
ters of like character, w T hich are by him transmitted to 
the Bureau of Patents. I append verbatim copies (includ- 
ing orthography) of three which represent many thous- 



458 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". 

ands more of equal intelligence received at this Depart- 
ment of the Government. 

August 31st 1872 
Mr. U. S. Grant Sir it is with pleasure I take this oppor- 
tunity Of writing to You I Am well at Present Hoping those 
few lines will find you enjoying Good health And prosperity I 
am doing all I can for you in this locality and I hope and ex- 
pect you will be our next President Of the United States I 
would like to have an Office of Siveliseing the Indians What 
Salary will you give me per Annum please Write to me and 
let me no in fact I am in need of A little money at present 

Will you please send me 600 or 1000 dolors to 

Sumthing Aught to be done for the poor Indean And I beleave 
that I can sipplersse them. If you will give me 200 or 300 per 
month it will doo. 

March 13 1873 
Hon. Sir Presedent of the United States of Amer- 
ica I announce to you that I am inventing Perpetual Motion 
I have once had my paterns stolen or I should had the machine 
in running order before this and I have altered my plan so that 
it carrys a shaft and wheel and when constructed on a large 
plan it will move machinery, And being on a new plan and 
different from all others and I am sure of success which I hope 
to place before the world soon. Though in consequence of poor 
health and not having the means to work with it will take some 
months longer to accomplish it I might write you the plan 
but I am not sure that you will receive this And now I wish 
to ask a few questions which I hope you will answer by writing 
as soon as you receive this 

1st has there been a patent granted or applied for on per- 
petual motion 

2nd has the Government a bounty offered to the inventor 
3d when the Machine is in perfect running order and shure 
that it will go without stoping will you and a man from the 



MODEST REQUEST OF AN INVENTOR. 459 

Patent Office come on and grant me a patent and fetch me the 
bounty if there is one. 

4th is there eney way that I can have time to get the machine 
completed before others can apply for a Patent 

Please write soon and address 

May 18T2 
Hon Friend — Solicitor of Patents I have invented a secret 
form of writing expressly for the use of our gov in time of 
warfare the publick demands it, It is different from any other 
invention known to the publick in this or any gov. It consists 
simply of the English alphabet and can be changed to any form 
that the safety of our gov. demands it no higherglyphicks are 
employed but it is practicable and safe I propose to sell it to 
our gov for the sum of one million dollars I will meet any 
committee appointed to investigate the matter. If you will give 
me your influence in Congress and aid in bringing a sale of the 
invention about to our gov or any other I will reward you with 
the sum of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) It is no illusion or a 
whim of the brain but is what I represent it to be scientific prac- 
ticable and safe, Wishing to hear from you on the subject I 
remain 

Yours most truly— 



CHAPTER XLII. 
THE WAR DEPARTMENT. 

The Secretary-of-War — His Duties — The Department of the Navy — Effi- 
ciency of the Army — The Custody of the Flags — Patriotic Trophies — The 
War of the Rebellion — Captured Flags — An Ugly Flag and a Strange 
Motto — " Crown for the Brave " — Sic Semper Tyrannis — The Stars and 
Stripes — The Black Flag — No Quarter — The Military Establishment — 
The Adjutant-General's Office — The Quartermaster-General's Office — 
The Commissary- General's Office — The Paymaster-General — The Sur- 
veyor-General — The Engineer's Office — The Washington Aqueduct — 
Topographical Engineers — The Ordnance Bureau — The War Depart- 
ment Building — During the War — Lincoln's Solitary Walk — Secretary 
Stanton — The Exigencies of War — The Medical History of the War — 
Dr. Hammond — Dr. J. H. Baxter — Collecting Physiological Data — The 
Inspection of Over Half a Million Persons — Who is Unfit for Mili- 
tary Service — Various Nationalities Compared — Curious Calculations 
Respecting Height, Health, and Color — Healthy Emigrants — Remark- 
able Statistical Results — The Physical Status of the Nation. 

THE first recorded legislation of importance upon the 
military affairs of the nation, is the Act of Con- 
gress, of the twenty-seventh day of January, 1785, en- 
titled "An Ordinance for ascertaining the Powers and 
Duties of the Secretary of War." 

By this Act the duties of the Secretary are defined ; 
and amongst them is a provision requiring him to visit, 
" at least once a year," " all the magazines and deposits 
of public stores, and report the state of them, with proper 
arrangements, to Congress." 

Immediately after the confederation of the States, by 



THE WAR-DEPARTMENT. 461 

the adoption of the Constitution, this legislation was su- 
perseded by an Act of Congress, approved on the seventh 
day of August, 1789, denning the duties of the depart- 
ment, which was again modified by the fifth Congress, in 
the Act of the thirtieth day of April, 1798, "To establish 
an Executive Department, to be denominated the De- 
partment of the Navy." Of the efficiency of this de- 
partment, and its services to the Republic, there can be 
no better testimony than that which has been extorted 
from history, in the following words : " The United States, 
from the peace of Independence, in 1783, achieved by 
war, and merely acknowledged by treaty, have always (?) 
lost by treaty, but never by war." 

This sentiment, which is not as true now of our rela- 
tions with Great Britain as in 1814, contains within it 
a compliment to the Department which, with limited 
means, and encountering the natural jealousy of civism, 
has so administered its scanty finances that the army has 
been made not only a defence for the frontiers, but a rec- 
ognized national force, equal to the direst emergency, 
a nucleus around which, in any peril, the strength and 
bravery of the Republic may safely rally. 

By the Act of the fourteenth of April, 1814, the Sec- 
retaries of War and of the Navy were placed in custody 
of the flags, trophies of war, etc., to deliver the same for 
presentation and display in such public places as the Pres- 
ident may deem proper. Although many trophies, which 
a monarchical power would have jealously preserved, 
have been lost, or at least detached from their proper 
resting-place, there are still enough in both departments 
to stir the patriotic emotions of all who take the trouble 
to inquire for them. 



462 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

The war of the Rebellion greatly increased these tro- 
phies. The Rebel flags taken in battle, and in surrender, 
and the Union flags, re-captured from the Confederates, 
now occupy large apartments in two buildings belong- 
ing to the War Department; and are all placed under 
the supervision of the Adjutant-General. In "Winder's 
Buildings " hundreds of these flags are deposited, and 
many hundreds more in the Adjutant-General's office on 
Seventeenth street. The front and back rooms on the 
lower floor of the latter house are exclusively devoted 
to their preservation. A polite "orderly" is in waiting, 
with a record-book, which gives the name and history 
of every flag in the building. The front room is devot- 
ed to the Union colors which were re-taken from the 
rebels. The back room is filled with Confederate flags 
of every device and hue. Here is the first Confederate 
flag adopted — an ugly rag, thirteen stars on a blue field, 
with white and red bars. Its motto : " We will collect 
our own revenues. We choose our own institutions." 

The colors of the Benjamin Infantry, organized April 
24, 1861, bear the inscriptions: "Crown for the brave." 
" Strike for your altars and your fires." 

An Alabama flag, of white bunting, with broad cross- 
bars of blue, sewed on by women's hands, is inscribed : 
"Our Homes, our Rights, we entrust to your keeping, 
brave Sons of Alabama." 

"Sic Semper Tyrannis" says a tattered banner of fine 
silk, presented in the first flush of rebellion-fever, with 
the confidence of assured victory, " by the ladies of 
Norfolk, to the N. L. A. Blues." Again, says Virginia: 
" Our Rights we will maintain." " Death to Invaders 
covered with blood." " Death or Victory," cries the 




BLOOD-STAINED CONFEDERATE BATTLE FLAGS, CAPTURED DURING THE WAR. 

f'-kotchcd by permission f iho Government from tho largo collection in possession of tho War Department, at Washington. 

1. Black Flag. 4. State and Regim'nt unknown. [Captured at the Battle of 

2. Alabama Flag. Gettysburg, by t bo liUth Regiment of New York Volunteers ] 

3. I'alaiollo l'lag. 5. State Colors of North Carolina. 



THE HIDEOUS BLACK FLAG. 463 

Zachary Rangers — and again: "Tyranny is hateful to 
the gods." 

With the exception of the State colors, the Union flags 
bear fewer mottoes. Many are fashioned of the finest 
fabrics, touched with the most exquisite tints. They 
need no florid and sensational sentence. Enough, that 
they bear the potent and silent stars of indissoluble 
union : 

" When Freedom, from her mountain height, 

Unfurled her standard to the air, 

She tore the azure robe of night, 

And set the stars of glory there ; 

She mingled with the gorgeous dyes 

The milky baldrick of the skies, 

And striped its pure celestial white 

With streakings of the morning light ; 

Then, from his mansion in the sun, 

She called her eagle-bearer down, 

And gave into his mighty hand, 

The symbols of her chosen land." 

Beside this Flag of the Republic, the Black Flag, borne 
at Winchester, with its hideous yellow stripe, and hellish 
sentence, " No Quarter," needs no comment. From floor 
to nave, they droop everywhere, faded, tattered, bullet- 
riddled, the flags of Freedom, and the ensigns of Slavery, 
defiant, yet doomed. On one side of the apartment, 
cases, divided into minute boxes, rise to the ceiling. Each 
one is large enough to take a flag tightly rolled. Over 
all hangs a curtain ; and here these rags, which have out- 
lasted the wasting march, the sore defeat, wait to tell 
their story in silence to coming generations. 

The War Department is now divided into the following 
Bureaus : 



464 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. 

Secretary's Office : The Secretary of War is charged, 
under the direction of the President, with the general 
control of the military establishment, and the execu- 
tion of the laws relating thereto. The functions of the 
several Bureaus are performed under his supervision 
and authority. In the duties of his immediate office 
he is assisted by a chief clerk, claims-and-disbursing 
clerk, requisition-clerk, registering-clerk, and three re- 
cording-clerks. 

The Adjutant-General's Office is the medium of com- 
munication to the army of all general and special orders 
of the Secretary-of-War relating to matters of military 
detail. The rolls of the army, and the records of ser- 
vice are kept, and all military commissions prepared in 
this office. 

The Quartermaster-General's Office has charge of all 
matters pertaining to barracks and quarters for the 
troops, transportation, camp and garrison-equipage, cloth- 
ing, fuel, forage, and the incidental expenses of the mili- 
tary establishment. 

The Commissary-General's Office has charge of all 
matters relating to the procurement and issue of subsist- 
ence-stores in the army. 

The Paymaster-General's Office has the general direc- 
tion of matters relating to the pay of the army. 

The Surgeon-General's Office has charge of all matters 
relating to the medical and hospital service. 

The Engineer's Office, at the head of which is the 
Chief Engineer of the army, has charge of all matters re- 
lating to the construction of the fortifications, and to the 
Military Academy. At present, the Washington Aque- 
duct is being built under its direction. The Bureau of 



Lincoln's solitaky walk. 465 

Topographical Engineers, at the head of which is the Chief 
of the Corps, has charge of all matters relating to river 
and harbor improvements, the survey of the lakes, the 
construction of military works, and generally of all mili- 
tary surveys. 

The Ordnance Bureau, at the head of which is the 
chief of ordnance, has charge of all matters relating to 
the manufacture, purchase, storage, and issue of all ord- 
nance, arms, and munitions of war. The management of 
the arsenals and armories is conducted under its orders. 

The present building, still used for the War Depart- 
ment, is 1 utterly inadequate to its necessities. Already 
its Bureaus are scattered in several transient resting- 
places. In a few years they will be again concentrated 
in the magnificent structure now going up, for the com- 
bined use of the State, War and Navy Departments. 

With the present War Department building will be ob- 
literated one of the oldest land-marks of the Capital. All 
through the war of the Rebellion, it seemed to be the 
temple of the people, to which the whole nation came 
up, as they did to the temple at Jerusalem. What fates 
hung upon the fiats which issued from its walls ! Hither 
came mother, wife, and daughter, to seek their dead, and 
to supplicate the furlough for their living soldier. What 
times those were, when the very life of the nation seemed 
suspended upon the will of the great War Secretary. I 
cannot look at the trees which arch the avenue between 
the War Department and the President's house, without 
thinking of those days when Lincoln took his solitary 
walk to and fro to consult with Stanton, his step slow, 
his eyes sad, over-weighted with responsibility and sor- 
row. And going down Seventeenth street, who that 

30 



466 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

ever saw him can fail to recall the image of Stanton as 
he paced up and down before the door of the War De- 
partment for his half-hour's exercise, when he held him- 
self a prisoner within its walls. . 

All will soon be gone — the old familiar places as well 
as the old familiar faces. The grating of the trowel, 
cementing stone on stone, the ceaseless click of the ham- 
mer foretell how speedily the august stone structure, with 
graceful monoliths and turreted roof stretching over the 
vast square, will take the place of the old War Depart- 
ment. 

The exigencies of war not only augmented the business 
of the War Department to gigantic proportions, but they 
created important Bureaus which have survived to nourish 
in times of peace ; of these, none are so interesting, both 
to scientists and to citizens, as those connected with the 
medical history of the war. It may not be universally 
known to the public, but the medical profession has long 
been aware that the immense collection of cases and 
treatment, recorded in the field and hospital experiences 
of the late war, was being examined, condensed, tabu- 
lated, and the valuable conclusion, deducible therefrom, 
prepared for publication, under the direction of the Sur- 
geon General of the army. 

During the past few years "circulars" or detached por- 
tions of the work, of special interest, have been issued, 
and this spring two quarto volumes, being the first parts 
of the first two volumes of the entire work, have been 
given to the world. 

Part I. of Volume I. is devoted to medical history, and 
has been compiled by Dr. Woodward, an assistant-sur- 
geon of the army. This is a volume of eleven hundred 



THE MEDICAL HISTORY OF THE WAR. 467 

pages, and is divided into two parts and an appendix. 
The parts give the statistics of disease and death, respect- 
ively, of white and colored troops. The appendix consists 
of reports and statements of medical officers and their 
superiors. 

Part I. of Volume II. commences the surgical history, 
and is the work of Dr. Otis, also an assistant-surgeon of 
the army, and well known as the curator of the Army 
Medical Museum. It contains nearly eight hundred 
pages, and is illustrated by numerous photo-lithographs 
of gunshot wounds, stumps of amputated limbs, and va- 
rious other injuries of the human body — all evidences of 
the cruelties of war. 

The merit of the conception of this vast undertaking, 
is due to the former Surgeon-General, Dr. Hammond, 
now the distinguished physician of New York city. 

In 1862 he devised the form and routine for copious and 
precise returns of hospital treatment, and under his ener- 
getic supervision, Dr. Brinton of the volunteer corps, and 
Doctors Woodward and Otis, commenced the "Medical 
and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion." 

The work was ably continued by Dr. Barnes, the pres- 
ent Surgeon-General, and the result of all these labors 
is, so far, seen in the two volumes described, for the pub- 
lication of which an appropriation was made by Congress 
in June, 1868. It is supposed that the entire work will 
reach six, and perhaps eight, such parts, and it certainly 
will be, when completed, a noble evidence of the liberal- 
ity with which the Government provided for its sick and 
wounded soldiers, who fought for its preservation, and of 
the patriotism of the men who suffered in supporting such 
Government. 



468 TEN TEARS IN - WASHINGTON - . 

Brevet Major-General Joseph K. Barnes, Surgeon-Gen- 
eral of the United States Army, was born in Pennsylvania, 
and appointed Assistant-Surgeon United States Army from 
that State, June, 1840, and stationed at the United States 
Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., until November of 
that year. He served in the Florida war against the 
Seminole Indians to 1842 ; at Fort Jesup, La., to 1846 ; 
in the war with Mexico to 1848 ; at Baton Rouge, La., 
and in Texas the same year, at Baltimore, Md., to 1851 ; 
in Missouri, to 1854 ; again at the United States Mili- 
tary Academy, West Point, N. Y., to 1857 ; in California 
and at Fort Vancouver, W. T., to 1861; at the head-quar- 
ters of General Hunter, Western Department and Depart- 
ment of Kansas to 1862. 

He was promoted to be surgeon in the United States 
Army, August, 1856 ; Lieutenant Colonel and Medical In- 
spector, February, 1863 ; Colonel and Medical Inspector- 
General, August, 1863 ; and was assigned duty as Acting- 
Surgeon-General, United States Army, in the same month ; 
appointed Brigadier-General and Surgeon-General, United 
States Army, August, 1864 ; Brevetted Major-General, 
United States Army, for faithful and meritorious services 
during the war. 

Another medical report, perhaps equal in value to the 
Surgeon General's, has issued from the medical branch of 
the Provost-Marshal-General's Bureau, under the super- 
vision of Dr. J. H. Baxter. 

Dr. Jedediah H. Baxter, Lieutenant-Colonel and Chief 
Medical-Purveyor, United States Army, was born in Straf- 
ford, Orange County, Vt., May 11, 1837. He was gradu- 
ated at the University of Vermont, both in the academi- 
cal and medical departments, and in 1860 served as assist- 



TOE CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER. 469 

ant professor of anatomy and surgery in that University. 
He was house surgeon in "Bellevue Hospital" at the "Sea- 
men's Retreat," Staten Island, and on " Blackwell's Island." 

He entered the Twelfth Regiment of Massachusetts Vol- 
unteers in April, 1861, was commissioned assistant-sur- 
geon of the Regiment, May 13, 1861, and promoted to be 
surgeon, June 19, 1861. Served as post surgeon at Fort 
"Warren, Boston Harbor, until July 26, 1861, when, with 
his regiment, he was mustered into the United States ser- 
vice and ordered to join the forces then forming under Gen. 
N. P. Banks at Sandy Hook, Md., opposite Harper's Fer- 
ry. He was Acting-Brigade-Surgeon, until April 4, 1862, 
when, promoted to Brigade-Surgeon of Volunteers, he 
was ordered to report for duty to Gen. Geo. B. McClellan, 
and served on the staff of that officer during the Penin- 
sular campaign, as Medical Director of Field-Hospitals 
and the transportation of sick and wounded of the Army 
of the Potomac. 

Disabled from field service by the " peninsular fever," 
he was ordered to hospital duty in Washington, D. C., Au- 
gust 1, 1862, and was in charge of Judiciary Square United 
States General Hospital until September, 1862, when he 
was ordered to superintend the building of Campbell 
United States General Hospital, Washington, D. C., of 
which Hospital, when completed, he was placed in charge, 
where he remained until January 5, 1864, when he was re- 
lieved and ordered to report for special duty to the Provost- 
Marshal-General of the United States, who assigned him 
to duty as " Chief Medical Officer of the Provost-Marshal- 
General's Bureau." In this capacity he served, having 
the management of all medical matters pertaining to the 
recruitment of the army, until the close of the war, hav- 



470 TEN TEARS EST WASHINGTON. 

ing been Brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel of the United 
States Volunteers in March, 1865, and Colonel of the 
United States Volunteers in January, 1866. 

When the Provost-Marshal-General's Bureau was abol- 
ished, he was placed on special duty by an Act of Con- 
gress, in preparing a report of the medical statistics of 
the Provost-Marshal-General's Bureau. On July 20, 1866, 
he was commissioned Assistant-Medical-Purveyor, United 
States Army, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and 
was Brevetted Colonel " for faithful and meritorious ser- 
vices during the war." He was promoted to the position 
of Chief Medical Purveyor of the United States Army, 
March 12, 1872, in which position he has supervision of 
the purchase and distribution of all hospital and medical 
supplies required for the use of the army. 

On being called to the charge of the medical branch 
of the Provost-Marshal-General's Bureau, Dr. Baxter soon 
perceived that, in the several Acts of Congress devolving 
upon the Provost-Marshal-General the duty of recruiting 
by voluntary enlistment, conscription and substitution, 
the vast armies called out to suppress the rebellion, lay 
the means of obtaining such a view of the physical state 
and military capacity of the nation as had never before 
and might never again be obtained. After an examina- 
tion of such material as had already accumulated under 
the limited operation of the draft and recruiting Acts, he 
prepared and issued to the surgeons of the enrolling 
boards, in the several congressional districts, blank forms 
and instructions designed to afford the means of tabula- 
ting from the reports of individual examinations of re- 
cruits, drafted men and substitutes, the statistics illustra- 
ting the relations between disease and nativity, residence, 



THE MEDICAL HISTORY OF THE WAR. 471 

age, complexion, height, and size, social condition and 
occupation in the sex on which the principal physical 
burdens of life fall. 

The accumulating records of the medical department 
of the army could be utilized for the benefit of military 
surgery and hygiene by showing the varying facts of dis- 
ease and wounds among soldiers, and the records of pen- 
sion applications and the regularly recurring examinations 
of invalid pensioners would give the results of non-fatal 
wounds and disease upon the disabled soldier returned to 
civil life. But Dr. Baxter saw that a separate and import- 
ant field of study and action was left to his own bureau, 
if its current records could be reduced to a system of ful- 
ness, accuracy and uniformity. This was successfully 
done, and the results will soon be before the public. From 
advance sheets of the volume, many interesting facts 
have been drawn for this article. The work is based 
on the reports made of the medical inspection of about 
605,000 persons subject to draft, and minuter descriptions 
of the fuller examination of 508,735 recruits, substitutes 
and drafted men. 

Of the whole number examined, a little over 257 in 
each thousand were found unfit for military service. The 
largest number found disqualified through any specific 
class of diseases were those affected by diseases of the 
digestive organs, the ratio of unfitness to the whole num- 
ber examined being a little more than sixty in a thousand. 
Fifty nativities are embraced in the report, the ratio of 
unfitness in each thousand being, for American whites, 
323; American colored, 225 ; Canadians, 258 ; Irish, 337; 
Germans, 400; Scandinavians, 294; English, 325; and 
Scotch, 308. 



472 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

From these ratios it will be seen that the Negroes, Can- 
adians and Scandinavians were the healthiest, and the 
Germans and Irish the unhealthiest. The relative posi- 
tion assigned to the negro by these figures is not in ac- 
cord with the general opinion upon the subject, but the 
healthiness of unskilled occupations and his simple method 
of life in the South accounts for the fact. The report also 
shows that a larger proportion of civilians are fit for mil- 
itary duty in this eountry than in Great Britain or France, 
and probably Germany, though the figures to prove the 
proposition in the latter case are not at hand. 

Of the recruits, conscripts and substitutes under twenty 
years of age, the ratio of rejection and exemption was 268 
in the thousand, including those too young for service ; 
between twenty and twenty-five years, the ratio was 245; 
between twenty-five and thirty, the ratio was 330 ; it 
was 411 between thirty and thirty-five ; between thirty- 
five and forty it was 462, and over forty years it was 
607 in a thousand, including all rejected for dotage. 

This table bears out the common experience that infirm- 
ities grow with age. Of the native whites, 663 in a thou- 
sand were of light complexion ; of Canadians, 661 in a 
thousand; of English, 705; of Irish, 702; and of German, 
694 — indicating, by the lower ratio of fair complexion, a 
greater admixture of races in this country than in the 
parent countries. Of persons of light complexion, 385 in 
the thousand were unfit for service, while the dark com- 
plexions show the healthier ratio of 332 in each thousand. 
The average height of Americans is found to be 5 feet 
7£ inches, of Canadians 5.5, 5.1, of Irish and Germans 
5.5, 5.4, of Scandinavians and English 5.6, 0, and of 
French one-fifth of an inch lower than the last named. 



INTERESTING AND CURIOUS STATISTICS. 473 

All under five feet were rejected or exempted, as the case 
might be ; and the rejections under 5 feet 1 inch were 582 
in the thousand, between 5.1 and 5.3 they were 443, be- 
tween 5.3 and 5.5 they were 322, between 5-5 and 5.7 they 
were 303, between 5.7 and 5.9 they were 313, between 
5.9 and 5.11 they were 326, between 5.11 and 6.1 they 
were 350, and they were 358 in all over 6 feet 1 inch. 
The healthiest persons were those of the average height 
of 5 feet 7 inches. 

The chest measurements, at moment of respiration, av- 
eraged 33.11 inches for Americans, 32.84 for Irish, 33.56 
for Germans, 33.01 for Canadians and 32.93 for English. 
The detailed statistics of height and size bear out the 
statement that, as a rule, only healthy foreigners migrate 
from the Old to the New World and healthy natives from 
the old to the new States ; both conclusions are quite rea- 
sonable, when the anticipated and real hardships of migra- 
tion are considered. 

Considering the figures relating to occupation, it is 
found that the ratio of unfitness for army life was 409 in 
a thousand among persons engaged in in-door pursuits, and 
only 349 in a thousand, in persons of out-door callings. 

Taken by trades and professions, it appears that of 
journalists 740 in a thousand were disqualified, physicians 
670, clergymen and preachers 654, dentists 549, lawyers 
544, tailors 473, teachers 455, photographers 451, mercan- 
tile clerks 416, painters 392, carpenters 383, stone-cutters 
376, shoe-makers 362, laborers 358, farmers 350, printers 
335, tanners 216, iron- workers 189. The average ratio 
of disability among professional men was 520 in a thou- 
sand, merchants 480, artisans 484, and unskilled laborers 
348 only. 



474 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

The journalists, doctors and clergymen were the un- 
healthiest professional men, and teachers and musicians 
the healthiest. Brokers were the unhealthiest of the 
mercantile class, and shop-keepers and peddlers the 
healthiest. Iron and leather-workers were the health- 
iest of the artisans ; in the first occupation, partly, because 
only robust men can follow it. Paper-makers, tailors and 
upholsterers appear to have been the unhealthiest trades. 
Of unskilled occupations, so-called, for the purposes of 
this work, miners and mariners were the healthiest, and 
watchmen, bar-keepers and fishermen the unhealthiest. 
Explanation is found in the case of watchmen, in the 
number of old and broken-down men following that vo- 
cation. The ratio of single men found disqualified was 
393 in a thousand, and of married men 447 in a thousand; 
the difference, however, being no argument against mar- 
riage, as the latter class embraces a larger proportion of 
men beyond middle age. 

Congress has provided liberally for the publication of 
Dr. Baxter's medical statistics of drafts and recruitments, 
and the volume will contain shaded maps and diagrams, 
to aid in exhibiting and contrasting the results of his 
unique studies of the physical status of the nation. 



CHAPTER XLIH. 

THE AEMY MEDICAL MUSEUM— ITS CURIOSITIES AND 

WONDERS. 

Ford's Theatre — Its Interesting Memories — The Last Festivities — Assassin- 
ation of President Lincoln — Two Years Later — Effects of " War, Dis- 
ease, and Human Skill" — Collection of Pathological Specimens — The 
Army Medical Museum Opened — Purchase of Ford's Theatre — Its Pres- 
ent Aspect — Ghastly Specimens — Medical and Surgical Histories of the 
War — The Library — A Book Four Centuries Old — Rare Old Volumes — 
The Most Interesting of the National Institutions — Various Opinions — 
Effects on Visitors — An Extraordinary Withered Arm — A Dried Sioux 
Baby ! — Its Poor Little Nose — A Well-dressed Child — Its Buttons and 
Beads — Casts of Soldier-Martyrs — Making a New Nose — Vassear's Mount- 
ed Craniums — Model Skeletons — A Giant, Seven Feet High — Skeleton 
of a Child — All that Remains of Wilkes Booth, the Assassin — Fractures 
by Shot and Shell — General Sickles Contributes His Quota — A Case of 
Skulls — Arrow-head Wounds — Nine Savage Sabre-Cuts — Seven Bullets 
in One Head — Phenomenal Skulls — A Powerful Nose — An Attempted 
Suicide — A Proverb Corrected — Specimen from the Paris Catacombs — 
An " Interesting Case " — Typical Heads of the Human Race — Remark- 
able Indian Relics — " Flatheads " — The Work of Indian Arrows — An Ex- 
traordinary Story — A " Pet " Curiosity — A Japanese Manikin — Tattooed 
Heads — Representatives of Animated Nature — Adventure of Captain 
John Smith — A "Stingaree" — The Microscopical Division — Medical 
Records of the War — Preparing Specimens. 

THE building in which Abraham Lincoln was assassin- 
ated will always retain a deep and sad interest in 
the mind of the American people. It was well that it 
should be consecrated to a national purpose. None could 
be more fit than to make it the repository of the Patho- 
logical and Surgical results of the war. 



476 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

From the dark hour of the great martyr's death, the 
light and music of amusement never again animated 
these dark halls. But in two years from the day of the 
tragedy, its doors were opened to the people, to come in 
and behold what war, disease, death, and human skill 
had wrought. 

In obedience to an order from the War Department, 
issued in 1862, thousands of pathological specimens had 
accumulated in the office of the Surgeon-General. An 
ample and fit receptacle was needed for their proper care 
and display. And April 13, 1867, the old Ford Theatre, 
on Tenth street, between E and F, was opened as the 
Army Medical Museum. 

Congress had already purchased the building of Mr. 
Ford, and used it for a time as the receptacle for the 
captured archives of the Confederate Government. Be- 
fore it was opened as the Army Museum, its interior had 
been entirely remodeled, retaining nothing of the orig- 
inal building but the outside walls. It has been made 
fire-proof, aud is exclusively devoted to the uses of the 
Museum. The third story is the Museum hall, lined on 
its four sides with pictures and glass cases filled with 
ghastly specimens, beside many more in the interior of 
the room. 

Over a square railing, in the centre of the hall, you 
look down upon the second story, and through that to 
the first. The lower floor is filled with busy clerks, sitting 
at tables, writing out the medical and surgical histories of 
the war. 

The second floor, which is reached by light spiral stairs 
from the first, is largely devoted to the very valuable 
Medical and Surgical Library, which has been collected 



THE AKMT MEDICAL MUSEUM. 477 

since the opening of the Museum. It now numbers 
thirty-eight thousand volumes, some of which are rare 
books of extreme value. One of these was among the 
earliest of printed volumes. The art of printing was 
first used to give to the world religious and medical 
books. This treasure of the Medical Museum was pub- 
lished at Venice, in 1480, and is the work of Petrus de 
Argelata. It is bound and illuminated in vellum. An- 
other choice book, is a copy of Galen, which once be- 
longed to the Dutch anatomist, Vierodt, and copiously an- 
notated by him. These, and many other valuable books, 
have been bought by the agents of the Museum, abroad, 
while many others have been received as contributions 
from physicians, and scientific societies interested in the 
growth of this national institution. 

Louis Bagger, in a late number of Appletons Journal, 
speaks of the Army Medical Museum as one of the most 
interesting, but least visited, of all the national institu- 
tions in Washington. It cannot fail to be one of the 
most absorbing spots on earth to the student of surgery 
or medicine ; but to the unscientific mind, especially to 
one still aching with the memories of war, it must ever 
remain a museum of horrors. Its many bones, which 
never ached, and which have survived their painful 
sheaths of mortal flesh, all cool and clean, and rehung on 
golden threads, are not unpleasant to behold. But those 
faces in frames, eaten by cancer or lost in tumors, which 
you look up to as you enter, are horrible enough to haunt 
one forever (if you are not scientific) with the thought 
of what human flesh is heir to. 

No ! the Museum is a very interesting, but can never be 
a popular place to visit. I doubt if a sight at the Sioux 



478 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

pappoose, and a bit of John Wilkes Booth's spinal mar- 
row, or a piece of General Sickles' leg, will be sufficient 
compensation to the average unscientific mind, to go 
twice to look at those terrible tumors and elephantiasis in 
gilt frames and glass jars. It is enough to make one feel 
as if the like were starting out all over you. But that 's 
because you are not scientific. 

The first " specimen " which confronts you on entering is 
a withered human arm, with contracted hand and clinched 
fingers, mounted on wires in a glass case on the window- 
ledge. The sharp bone protrudes where it was shot off 
near the shoulder joint; every muscle is defined; the skin 
looks like tanned leather. It is not pleasant to look at. A 
thrilling story has been printed about this arm. I am. 
sorry it is not wholly true. The one I have to tell will 
not please you as well, for it is not nearly as exciting. 

We were told that the shock of the cannon-shot, which 
took off this arm, carried it up into a high tree, where, a 
year or two after, its owner, a Gettysburg hero, revisiting 
the battle-field, discovered his lost member lodged in the 
branches, brought it down and bore it hither as a trophy. 
The soldier did find his arm (I am telling the true story) ; 
but he found it in a corn-field. By what mark he knew 
it I am not informed, but he declared it to be his arm, 
and brought it to the Museum as a first-class "sensational 
specimen." 

In the next window we find another one — the Sioux 
baby. Poor little baby ! It is not a Modoc — though not 
much better — it did not live to slay our brethren, so we 
are sorry as we look at it — for its once black locks are 
bleached red, and its nose is gone. - It was found in a 
tree near Fort Laramie. I have seen Sioux babies alive 



THE AEMY MEDICAL MUSEUM. 479 

upon their native soil, and can testify from personal ob- 
servation that this little pappoose-mummy is extraordi- 
narily well dressed. Hannah of old did not sew more 
buttons on the coat of her little Samuel in the Temple, 
than this poor savage mother did on the plains of Wyo- 
ming. It is of blue flannel, profusely ornamented with 
round tin buttons, and many beads on its broad collar. 
On its neck it wears a string of white delf beads, and 
there is something cunning and dainty in the tiny em- 
broidered moccasins upon its feet. In a case there is an- 
other pappoose still less agreeable to contemplate. It is a 
little Flat-head Indian. Its head is so very flat no doubt 
it died in the process of compression. This melancholy 
child also wears a white necklace, and was found buried 
in a tree. 

Passing on, we are arrested by a table surrounded on its 
outer edge by plaster casts of soldiers who have under- 
gone famous and difficult surgical operations. It is grat- 
ifying to know that, if you lose your nose by some other 
collision beside that of a cerami5nDaTI7~you can have 
a new one set on made out of your cheek. The new 
nose will grow to the root of the old one, and the hole in 
your cheek will fill up and the scar heal. To be sure it 
will hurt you frightfully ; but you can have a new nose 
made, and you yourself supply the material. If you 
don't believe it, come to the Army Medical Museum and 
see ! Here is the head of the poor fellow with his nose 
shot off — and here is another with the new nose grown 
on. 

In the centre of the table are some of Vassear's mounted 
craniums, purchased for the museum by order of the 
Surgeon-General. These craniums, with the skeletons in 



480 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON". 

the cases, are mounted after Blanchene's method, which 
allows every portion to be taken apart and put together 
again. This cranium on the table is as white as crystal ; 
it is mounted on gold, and tiny blue and crimson threads 
of silk trace from chin to head-top the entire nerve sys- 
tem. It is a work of exquisite art as well as of science, 
and in no sense repulsive. The glass cases just in the 
rear contain skeletons mounted by the same method. 
One is the skeleton of a giant, in life seven feet high, 
prepared by Auzoax and mounted by Blanchene's method. 
It is as white as snow, and its brass or gold joints (we 
will call them gold) are bright and flexile. Another, of 
a child of some six years, shows the entire double sets 
of first and second teeth. The first, not one tooth gone, 
and above, in the jaw, the entire row of second teeth 
ready to push the first ones out. 

Amid the thousands of mounted specimens in glass 
cases, which reveal the freaks of bullets and cannon-shot, 
we come to one which would scarcely arrest the at- 
tention of a casual observer. It is simply three human 
vertebra mounted on a stand and numbered 4,086. Be- 
side it hangs a glass phial, marked 4,087, filled with alco- 
hol, in which floats a nebulse of white matter. The offi- 
cial catalogue contains the following records of these 
apparently uninteresting specimens : 

" No. 4,086. — The third, fourth and fifth cervical vertebree. 
A conoidal carbine ball entered the right side, comminuting the 
base of the right lamina of the fourth vertebrae, fracturing it 
longitudinally and separating it from the spinous process, at the 
same time fracturing the fifth through its pedicles, and involving 
that transverse process. The missile passed directly through 
the canal, with a slight inclination downward and to the rear, 





A WITHERED ARM 

Skin, flesh and bonps complete. Amputated by a cannon shot on the battle fleld of Gettysburg. 
The shot carried [he severed limb up into the h;gh branches uf a tree, whore it was subsequently 
found completely air and sun dried. 



JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 

Being part of tfco Vertebra; penetrated [A"]bj 
the bullet of Boston Corbett. Snuntre freak of fate that the* 
remains of Booth should rind a re-ting place under the same roof 
and but a few feet from the spot where the fatal shot wag fired. 




SKULL OF A SOLDIER 

Wounded at Spottsylvania — showing the splitting of a Kifle ball, one 
portion being buried deep la the brain, and tho other between the scalp 
and the skull. He lived twenty-three days. 



APACHE INDIAN ARROW-HEAD 



Of soft hoop-iron. These arrows will nerferate a bone without causing the sliglites 
fracture, where n rifle or musket ball will flatten ; and will mako a cut as clean as thi 
finest surgical ii 



CJXJH.IO SITIBS 

From the Army Medical Museum, Washington. 



EEMAINS OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 481 

emerging through the left bases of the fourth and fifth laminse, 
which are comminuted, and from which fragments were embed- 
ded in the muscles of the neck. The bullet, in its course, 
avoided the large cervical vessels. From a case where death 
occurred in a few hours after injury, April 26, 1865." 

" No. 4,087.— A portion of the spinal-cord from the cervical 
region, transversely perforated from right to left by a carbine- 
bullet, which fractured the laminse of the fourth and fifth ver- 
tebrae. The cord is much torn and is discolored by blood. 
From a case where death occurred a few hours after injury, 
April 26, 1865." 

Such are the colorless scientific records of the death 
wounds of John Wilkes Booth. All that remains of him 
above the grave finds its perpetual place a few feet above 
the spot where he shot down his illustrious victim. 

It has been recorded elsewhere that the fatal wounds 
of Wilkes Booth and his victim were strikingly alike. 
" The balls entered the skull of each at nearly the same 
spot, but the trifling difference made an immeasurable 
difference in the sufferings of the two. Mr. Lincoln was 
unconscious of all pain, while his assassin suffered as ex- 
quisite agony as if he had been broken on a wheel." 

In the surgical division which contains the above speci- 
mens we find illustrations from living and dead subjects 
of almost every conceivable fracture by shot and shell. 

On a black stand, bearing the number 1,335, we see a 
strong white bone shattered in the middle. The official 
statement concerning it is : " The right tibia and fibula 
comminuted in three shafts by a round shell. Major- 
General D. E. S., United States Volunteers, Gettysburg, 
July 2, amputated in the lower third of the thigh by 
Surgeon T. Sim, United States Volunteers^ on the field. 

31 



482 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Stump healed rapidly, and subject was able to ride in 
carriage July 16 ; completely healed, so that he mounted 
his horse, in September, 1863. Contributed by the sub- 
ject " — who is General Daniel E. Sickles. 

One of the cases in this division is filled with skulls 
which show gunshot wounds from arrow-heads and 
thrusts from tomahawks and sabres. One of the latter, 
No. 970, shows nine savage sabre cuts. It is the skull 
of an Araucanian Indian, killed by Chilian troops. Near 
it is the skull of another Indian, riddled by six or seven 
bullet-shots received from American troops or trappers. 

The Museum contains eight craniums, which illustrate 
the wonderful fact of an unbroken external skull, while 
the vitreous table is perforated or dented. One of these 
shows slight discoloration on the outside of the head with- 
out fracture or depression, while inside, the bone is bro- 
ken. The seven other specimens illustrate the same phe- 
nomena. In this case we see craniums in which bullets 
are imbedded and broken. We see one where a conical 
bullet split in two in entering the head at the temple, 
one half going inside, caused instant death, while the 
other half struck the face outside. Here we see a minie- 
bullet split on the bones of the nose. Another case is of 
an attempted suicide — who died a natural death. He 
fired a pistol in his mouth, whose bullet passed through 
the jugular vein, but not through the head. It stopped 
short, embedded in the bone, where it remained as a stop- 
per to the blood from the perforated artery, and the man 
who tried to kill himself, lived seventeen years to be sorry 
for doing so. 

Two specimens in this collection deny the assertion 
that "when a man breaks his neck that is the last of 



LIVING WITH A BROKEN NECK. 4S3 

him." One of these is a skull taken from the Catacombs 
in Paris. It has a few vertebrae attached to the neck. 
One of these shows a distinct dislocation where it was 
broken from the head, and where it had grown closely to- 
gether again. The other is a home specimen, which shows 
no less distinctly where the broken neck again formed the 
connection with the head. There is also in this section 
of the museum a piece of human cranium, about the size 
of a silver dollar, cut from the head of a soldier wounded 
at Petersburgh, Va., June 14, 1864. The following is the 
official history of this " interesting case:" 

"The subject was admitted to Mount Pleasant General 
Hospital, Washington, D. C, on June 24, with the report 
that the progress of the case had been so far eminently 
satisfactory. After admission he was found to be insensi- 
ble, and a few hours subsequently convulsions supervened 
in rapidly recurring paroxysms. Twelve ounces of blood 
were taken from the temporal artery without apparent 
benefit. A trephine was then applied to the seat of frac- 
ture, and upon the removal of a bottom of bone, a portion 
of the inner table was found slightly depressed. This 
was elevated, and the patient, soon after, regained con- 
sciousness. On the 28th of June, the wound in the scalp 
became erysipelatous, and before the inflammation sub- 
sided there was extensive loss of substance of the integu- 
ments and pericranium denuding a large portion of the 
parietal bone. Necrosis ensued, and embraced the whole 
thickness of the bone. In September, 1864, a portion of the 
parietal, three inches by four, had become so much loos- 
ened that it was readily removed. After this, cicatrization 
went on rapidly ; and at the date of the last report, Decem- 
ber 2, 1864, the wound had contracted to an ulcer less than 



484 TEN YEAES IN" WASHINGTON. 

an inch in diameter. The patient's mental faculties were 
impaired somewhat, the ward-physician thought, but not 
to a great extent." 

This specimen was contributed by Assistant-Surgeon 
E. A. McCall, United States Army. A colored drawing 
was made representing the parts prior to the separation 
of the exfoliation, (No. 74, surgical series of drawings, 
Surgeon General's office.) 

We see suspended in a case the bone of an arm from 
the shoulder to the elbow. A musket ball having shat- 
tered it, it was necessary to take it out or amputate the 
arm. The surgeon chose the former. The bone with all 
its splinters was removed. The photograph of its owner 
is set up under it, while the living original may come and 
look at it any moment he chooses, he being one of the 
attaches to the Museum. He says that he can use the in- 
jured arm as readily as the other. The muscles and in- 
teguments have taken the place of the lost bone, and are 
strong enough to enable him to lift a two-hundred-pounds' 
weight without difficulty. 

Another case of great interest to the medical profes- 
sion, is that of a soldier of Company C, Eighth New 
Jersey Volunteers, who was wounded in the battle of the 
Wilderness, May 5, 1864. The specimen on exhibition 
is a piece of the hip-bone, about four or five inches long. 
This shattered bone was excised, May 27, 1864, and the 
patient was discharged from the hospital, April 17, 1865, 
perfectly cured, and able to use the mutilated limb with- 
out its portion of thigh-bone. In 1868, he was well, could 
walk without a cane, and was employed as a hod-carrier. 
He now receives a Government pension of fifteen dollars 
a month. 



INDIAN AKROWS. 485 

At the right of the main entrance, stands the Cranio- 
logical Cabinet. It contains a thousand or more speci- 
mens of the cranise of different human races. Beside 
the skull of the Caucasian, we see that of the African, 
each of the highest order of its kind. The long line 
contains a " sample " of nearly all the typical heads of 
the human race. 

The collection contains a large number of Indian skulls 
of opposite tribes, taken from tumuli, and gathered from 
other sources. There are none to which the scientific 
man points with more interest, than to the skulls of the 
Flat-head Indians. These are perfectly flat on the top, 
forming a right angle with the forehead. Here is the 
head of a baby, who probably died in the process. 
Boards are tightly bound to infants' heads, from birth, 
till they cease to grow. One would suppose that this 
would lessen the brain-capacity. But as it can not grow 
in front, it avenges itself by pushing far out on the sides. 
Thus the Flat-head Indian's head is as wide as it is flat, 
and in defiance of phrenology, he is not only as bright, 
but brighter in his wits, than many of his neighbors. 

Here are Indian arrows, taken from the dead bodies 
of our soldiers on the plains. The arrowheads are made 
of barrel-hoops, and so sharp, they can pierce any skull. 
One is shown, still sticking through a portion of the 
shoulder-blade of a buffalo. The point of the arrow is 
outside of the bone, the arrow-tip having passed through 
the body of the buffalo, and through the bone, opposite 
the side that it entered. A rifle-ball would be flattened 
where an Indian arrowhead penetrates without hin- 
drance. The cut of an arrowhead is as clear and clean 
as if made by the most acute surgical instrument. The 



486 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON". 

fatal force with which an arrow is driven from an Indian 
bow, is illustrated in the following fact : Here, in the Mu- 
seum, is the piece of a door of a stage which was attacked 
by Comanches near Bellos River, Texas, September 1, 
1870. The wood, about an inch and a half thick, is 
pierced by an Indian arrowhead, the point appearing on 
the outside. 

Of the two passengers in the stage at the time of the 
occurrence, one was killed and the other escaped. The 
stage guard consisted of three soldiers— one was killed 
instantly, another escaped, the third was wounded. He 
received an arrow wound in the head, and three gunshot 
flesh-wounds, one in the arm, another in the leg and one 
in the breast. In this condition he travelled one hundred 
and sixty miles across the plains, on foot. Seven long days 
it took him to reach the post-hospital at Fort Concha, 
Texas. When admitted, mentally, he was clear and bright. 
But on September 19, he died. 

The skull of this unfortunate man, preserved in the 
Army Museum, shows an arrowhead firmly embedded in 
the petrous portion of the right temporal bone — a wound 
in itself, it would seem, sufficient to prove instantly fatal. 

One of the pet curiosities of the Museum is a Japan- 
ese manikin — ess — we will call it, as it is supposed to 
represent the creature feminine. The heart is a rearap- 
ple and the liver ( very properly ) a yellow one. The 
stomach looks like a lean pomegranate. The lungs are 
represented by five green oak leaves. These organs are 
lumped together, the lungs being below all the rest. The 
Japanese idea of anatomy seems to be quite as muddled 
as its powers of perspective. 

A case near the front window, contains three Maori 



STRUCK BY A " STTNGAREE." 487 

heads from New Zealand. They are all tattooed with the 
black juice of the betel-nut. Any thing more hideous 
than their empty eye-sockets, their striped cheek bones 
and ghastly white teeth cannot be imagined. 

Along the windows at the opposite end of the great 
hall, may be seen skeletons of all kinds of animals, birds, 
fishes and reptiles. Here are skeletons of the horse, the 
buffalo, the grizzly bear, the elk, the walrus, and the ray. 
One of these last, caught in James river, has been pre- 
sented to the Museum. 

Those who have read the early history of Virginia may 
remember that it chronicles the fact that once when Cap- 
tain John Smith, of wonderful memory, was one day 
bathing in the James River, he received a sudden shock, 
and many days elapsed before he recovered from it. It 
was supposed that he was struck by a l stingaree.' 

The ' stingaree ' is a corruption of the stinging ray — 
and such a specimen is shown in the Museum. The ray 
is a fish of the cartilaginous species, not having the ver- 
tebrated form. It has wings, each measuring about four- 
teen inches across the widest part ; and it has a very long 
tail, in which is implanted a sting, which resembles in its 
effects a shock of electricity, and produces temporary 
paralysis. The ray darts in among a shoal of fishes, elec- 
trifies them, and then proceeds to devour them. 

The microscopical division of the Museum on the li- 
brary floor is of great value. It affords facilities for the 
study of natural history and comparative anatomy equal 
to the medical schools of Paris. This department con- 
tains a series of photographical publications of enlarged 
photographic pictures of the specimens, mounted on card- 
board and bound in Russia leather. A set of this series, 



488 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

also a complete set of bound photographs of all the speci- 
mens contained in the surgical department of the Muse- 
um, with a sketch of the case attached, has been pre- 
sented to all the governments and large public libraries of 
Europe. In return, these European governments and 
libraries have sent complete sets of like publications of 
their own. Several hundred volumes, handsomely bound, 
include these foreign gifts to the Army Medical Museum 
at Washington. 

The primary object of the Army Medical Museum is 
to illustrate minutely the wounds and diseases of our late 
war, while the medical and surgical histories of the war, 
now being written under the supervision of the Surgeon- 
General, will show the processes of treatment and their 
results. Dr. J. J. Woodward, assisted by Dr. Otis, both 
of Pennsylvania, are charged with the writing of this 
history. Doctor Woodward is writing the medical his- 
tory, and Doctor Otis the surgical history of this import- 
ant national report. Five thousand copies of each will 
be issued by Congress. The first volumes of both histo- 
ries have already come from the bindery of the Public 
Printer in handsome form. The first of the medical vol- 
umes is chiefly occupied with tabular statements of the 
diseases which prevailed, and the numbers dying of each, 
during the entire period of our civil war. The coming 
volumes will treat of these diseases, the treatment pur- 
sued, and will give photographs of the organs affected in 
each disease. 

The Museum proper is divided into four departments, 
Surgery,. Medicine, Anatomy, and Comparative Anatomy. 
These are all placed in the hall of the third story. We 
reach this by an outer iron stair-case, whose walls on 



PREPARING "SPECIMENS." 489 

either side are lined with sketches and plans of the battle- 
fields of Gettysburg and Antietam, in black walnut frames. 
Entering the long hall, we are confronted at once by the 
ghastly victims in the frames opposite, and the eyes are 
quickly withdrawn to glance up and down along the pol- 
ished glass cases which line the walls. Above some of 
these cases droop the flags and standards, the swords and 
sabres which have survived the war. Models of ambu- 
lances, stretchers, and hospital tents, also have a place on 
the top of these cases. 

More than four-fifths of the specimens in the Museum 
have been presented to it, or exchanged for duplicate ob- 
jects, quantities of which are stored in the attic, ready for 
exchange. The Army Medical Museum belongs to the 
nation, and as its existence and object have been widely 
published, it is in daily receipt of new specimens. It has 
become an object of personal interest and pride to the 
medical fraternity of the country, each one of whom is 
invited to become a contributor to its pathological treas- 
ures. In a late official report, the Surgeon-General thus 
refers to the subject, which is of interest to all medical 
persons : 

"It is not intended to impose upon medical officers the 
labor of dissecting and preparing the specimens they 
may contribute to the Museum. This will be done un- 
der the superintendence of the curator. In forwarding 
such pathological objects as compound fractures, bony 
specimens, and wet preparations generally, obtained after 
amputation, operation, or cadaveric examination, all un- 
necessary soft parts should first be roughly removed. 
Every specimen should then be wrapped separately in a 
cloth, so as to preserve all spicule and fragments. A 



490 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

small block of wood should be attached, with the number 
of the specimen and the name of the medical officer send- 
ing it inscribed in lead-pencil; or a strip of sheet-lead, 
properly marked with the point of an awl, may be em- 
ployed for this purpose. In either case, the inscription 
will be uninjured by the contact of fluids. The prepara- 
tion should be then immersed in diluted alcohol or whis- 
ky, contained in a keg or small cask. When a sufficient 
number of objects shall have accumulated, the cask should 
be forwarded to the Army Medical Museum, in Washing- 
ton, D. C. The expenses of expressage will be defrayed in 
Washington. The receipt of the keg or package will be 
duly acknowledged by the curator of the Museum." 

When the first Army Medical Museum report was issued, 
January 1, 1863, the collection begun in August, 1862, 
numbered over thirteen hundred in all. Since then the 
collection has grown to the following proportions. In 
1873 it contains over sixteen thousand objects. In the 
surgical department alone, there are over six thousand. 
In the medical department over eleven hundred. In the 
anatomical department over nine hundred. In the de- 
partment of comparative anatomy over one thousand. 
In the microscopical department over six thousand. A 
library and photograph-gallery belong exclusively to the 
Museum. The side rooms and lower stories are used as 
the laboratories and work-rooms for preparing and mount- 
ing the specimens for exhibition. The Army Medical Mu- 
seum is a great beginning — and yet only a beginning of 
one of the most unique, precious and important, patho- 
logical collections in the world. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

"OLD PROBABILITIES" AT HOME— THE WEATHER BU- 
REAU. 

" Old Probabilities" — An Interesting Subject — The Weather Bureau — The 
Experience of Fifty Centuries — Value of Scientific Knowledge — Meteor- 
ological Observations — Brigadier-General Albert J. Meyer — His Life and 
Career — He Introduces System and Order — Foreseeing the Approach 
of Storms — The Fate of the Metis — Quicker than the Storm — The First 
Warning by Telegraph — Exchanging Reports with Canada — The " Observ- 
ing Stations " — Protecting the River Commerce — The Signal Corps — The 
Examinations — The Sergeant's Duties — The Signal-Stations — The Work 
of the Observers — Preparing Bulletins at Washington — Professor Maury's 
Account — Safeguards Against Mistakes — Deducing Probabilities — Des- 
patching Bulletins — Preparing Meteorological Maps — Recording Obser- 
vations — Watching the Storm — The Storm at San Francisco — Prophetic 
Preparations — Perfect Arrangements — Training the Sergeants — General 
Meyer's Work — "Away up G Street" — The Home of Old and Young 
" Probabilities " — An Extraordinary Mansion — The " Kites and Wind- 
mills" — Inside the Mansion — The Apparatus — " The Unerring Weather- 
Man" — "Old Probabilities" Himself— How Calculations are Made — 
" Young Probabilities " — Interesting Facts. 

THERE is no theme, not excepting marriage, birth, and 
death, that is more absorbing than " the weather." 
It has made and unmade kingdoms, it has brought tri- 
umph in battle, and terrible defeat, it has brought woe 
and death ; but that was before the day of " Old Proba- 
bilities," or the Weather Bureau. 

It is your own fault now, if your wedding-day is wet 
and gloomy, or if the rain pours into the open grave of 
the best-beloved. If you follow the weather report, you 



492 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

will know days before what the weather, in all proba- 
bility, will be, and the report seldom fails. Even ten 
years ago, who would have thought that he could so soon 
find in the newspaper the almost unfailing prophecy of 
the skies of the coming day! Think of the millions 
of anxious faces which have turned sky-ward since the 
earth began ! What eager and ignorant eyes have peered 
upward, to descry the portents of the unseen, yet brood- 
ing storm. Ignorance has already given place to knowl- 
edge, to a scientific forecasting of the elements, to a fore- 
statement of the conditions of earth and air. 

This wonderful fact, in its influence, penetrates not 
only to the finest fibre of social happiness, but influences 
all the civilizations of the earth. Although the changes 
of the atmosphere have seemed the most apparent of all 
the workings of nature, and have been more closely 
watched, and more constantly commented on by man- 
kind, than all others taken together, after the lapse of 
fifty centuries, the desultory observer is unable to predict 
certainly the weather of a single day. 

The value of accurate scientific knowledge on a subject 
which affects vitally the agricultural and commercial in- 
terests of the world, jas well as the physical health and 
spiritual happiness of mankind, cannot be overestimated. 

By a joint resolution of Congress, approved February 
9, 1870, the Secretary-of-War was authorized and re- 
quired to provide for taking meteorological observations 
at the military stations in the interior of the continent, 
and at other points in the States and Territories of the 
United States, and for giving notice on the northern 
lakes, and on the sea-coast, by magnetic telegraph and 
marine signals, of the approach and force of storms. 



" OLD PROBABILITIES." 493 

This special service was intrusted to the immediate 
supervision and control of General Albert J. Meyer. The 
following record of his services, in the United States Ar- 
my, can but slightly indicate his peculiar fitness for the 
position which he now holds. 

Brevet Brigadier-General Albert J. Meyer, Colonel and 
Chief Signal Officer, United States Army, was born in 
New York, and appointed Assistant-Surgeon, United States 
Army, from that State, September, 1854. He served on 
the Texas frontier, in the Rio Grande Valley, and at Fort 
Davis, Texas, to 1857; on special duty, signal service, 1858 
to 1860. He was appointed Major and Chief Signal Of- 
ficer, United States Army, July, 1860. In the Department 
of New Mexico to May, 1861 • on staff of General Butler, 
Fort Monroe, Va., June, 1861 ; organized and commanded 
Signal Camp, Fort Monroe, Va. ; Aide-de-Camp to Gen- 
eral McDowell at first battle of Bull Run, Va. ; Chief 
Signal Officer on staff of General McClellan, and com- 
manded Signal Corps, Army of the Potomac, to October, 
1862 ; charge of Signal Office, Washington, D. C, to 
November, 1863. 

He was appointed Colonel and Chief Signal Officer, 
United States Army, March, 1863 ; member of Central 
Board of Examination for admission to Signal Corps from 
April, 1863 • on reconnoissance of the Mississippi River, 
between Cairo, 111., and Memphis, Tenn., December, 1863, 
to May, 1864 ; Chief Signal Officer, Military Division of 
West Mississippi, May, 1864 ; Colonel and Chief Signal 
Officer, United States Army, July, 1866. He was brevet- 
ted Lieutenant-Colonel, United States Army, for gallant 
and meritorious services at the battle of Hanover Court- 
house, Va. ; Colonel, United States Army, for gallant 



494 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

and meritorious services at the battle of Malvern Hill, 
Va. ; and Brigadier General, United States Army, for dis- 
tinguished services in organizing, instructing, and com- 
manding Signal Corps of the army, and for its especial 
service at Altoona, Ga., October 5, 1864. 

General Meyer graduated at Geneva College, New 
York, 1847, A. B. and A. M., and took the degree of 
M. D., at the University of Buffalo, in 1851. He is the 
author of a manual of signals for the United States Army 
and Navy. 

Upon his appointment as Chief of the Signal Service, 
of the United States Army, General Meyer at once in- 
augurated a systematic plan ; he established stations at 
all points, decided by competent authorities to be import- 
ant and practicable. These he provided with plain, effi- 
cient instruments, and keen, trained observers, whose 
duty it was to report three times daily, at intervals of 
eight hours. These reports, made in abbreviated cypher, 
were conveyed by telegraph. With the delivery of the 
reports at Washington, and at other important posts to 
which they were sent, began the practical workings of the 
" Weather Bureau " in the Signal Service of the United 
States. January 15, 1871, the stations on the Atlantic 
Coast, with others, were added to the list reporting. 

One of the most important practical functions of the 
Bureau, is that of giving warning of approaching storms 
to vessels at the ports on the lakes. The unfortunate 
Metis received such a warning before it started on its 
last disastrous voyage. It gave no heed, and in conse- 
quence went to wreck, and scattered its victims thick as 
snow-flakes on the enimlfmo; waters of the Sound. The 
velocity of a storm being accurately observed at any one 



THE SIGNAL-SERVICE SYSTEM. 495 

of the stations, it was easy to predict with accuracy the 
time of its arrival at any given point lying in its path ; 
while the lightning wing of the telegraph bore this knowl- 
edge instantaneously to the threatened point. 

The first telegraphic warning given thus was sent and 
bulletined at the several ports along the lakes, November 
8, 1870. 

The system was soon carried still nearer perfection by 
the adoption of cautionary signals. The first of these 
was displayed at Oswego, N. Y. T October 26, 1871. Near 
this time, without any cost to the United States, the Bu- 
reau obtained a considerable extension to its area of ob- 
servation. 

In time the Canadian Government made a considerable 
appropriation to establish a similar system in the Domin- 
ion. Professor Kingston, chief of the Meteorological 
Bureau of Canada, requested of General Meyer an ex- 
change of reports. Arrangements for such an exchange 
were duly made, and the first reports from Toronto 
were forwarded to the United States, November 13, 1871. 
Reports were also exchanged with the director of the 
Observatory at Montreal. The Canadian reports are 
made synchronously with those of the United States and 
in the same cypher. The stations of the Dominion are 
van-posts to the United States, giving warning of storms 
moving; downward from the north. 

By the Act of Congress, approved June 10, 1872, it was 
made the duty of the Secretary-of-War to provide such 
stations, signals and reports as might be found necessary 
for the benefit of the commercial and agricultural inter- 
ests throughout the country. In response to an invita- 
tion made by the Chief Signal Officer, eighty-nine agri- 



496 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

cultural societies and thirty-eight boards of trade and 
chambers of commerce have appointed meteorological 
committees to cooperate and correspond with the Signal 
Bureau. The observing stations now number eighty-five. 
New stations are constantly being added. The station at 
Mount Washington is six thousand two hundred and 
ninety feet above the level of the sea. Other mountain- 
stations are to be established for the purpose of making 
observations upon the varying meteorological phenomena 
of different altitudes. These observations are sometimes 
made in a balloon. 

To obtain reports of observations at sea, to some ex- 
tent, the cooperation of ship-captains and of officers at 
the head of exploring expeditions has been obtained. A 
constant interchange of correspondence is also maintained 
with foreign meteorological societies. Five hundred tri- 
daily reports are constantly sent abroad. The same ex- 
change with foreign governments will be arranged as 
soon as possible. 

Besides weather-reports, a system of observation on 
the changes in the depth of waters in the principal West- 
ern rivers is already established. Great pains are taken 
with the reports on this subject, which are made to pro- 
tect the river commerce from ice and freshets, and the 
lower river levees from breakage and overflow. The ob- 
servations on the weather embrace those on atmospheric 
pressure, temperature, humidity of the air, force, direc- 
tion and velocity of the wind, and the amount of rain-fall. 
For these purposes each station is carefully provided with 
appropriate instruments by the central office. 

The Signal Corps is composed of a commanding officer 
with the rank of brigadier-general, several commissioned 



TRAINING FOR THE SERVICE. 497 

officers, and a certain number of sergeants and enlisted 
men. The sergeants are required to be proficient in 
spelling, the ground-rules of arithmetic, including deci- 
mal fractions, and the geography of the United States, 
and are required to write a legible hand. They are ex- 
amined in these branches before being admitted into the 
service. They are also subjected to a medical examina- 
tion, and only men of sound physical condition are ac- 
cepted. They are regularly enlisted into the military 
service of the United States, and are subject to the regu- 
lations for the government of the army. 

Immediately upon admission to the corps, each sergeant 
is sent to Fort Whipple, in Virginia, opposite Washington, 
where he is taught the duties of his profession, which are 
"chiefly those pertaining to the observation, record and 
proper publication and report, at such times as may be 
required, of the state of the barometer, thermometer, 
hygrometer, and rain-gauge, or other instruments, and 
the report by telegraph or signal, at such times as indica-_ 
ted, and to such places as may be designated by the chief 
signal officer, of the observations as made, or such other 
information as may be required." The text-books used 
in the school at Fort Whipple, are Loomis's "Text Book 
of Meteorology," Buchan's " Hand Book of Meteorology," 
Pape's "Practical Telegraphy," and the "Manual of Sig- 
nals for the United States Army." Instruction in the use 
of the instruments is also given, and the sergeant is taught 
to operate the telegraph. He is required to make daily 
recitations, and when he is considered prepared, by his 
instructor, he is ordered before an examining board, and 
is subjected to a rigid examination. If he is found prop- 
erly qualified, he is assigned to a signal station in some 

32 



498 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

part of the country, and is allowed an enlisted man to as- 
sist him in his duties. 

There are eighty-five signal stations, located in various 
parts of the Union, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 
from British America to the Gulf of Mexico. Each of 
these is supplied with a full set of the instruments neces- 
sary for ascertaining the condition of the weather, etc., 
and is in charge of an observer-sergeant, who is required 
to make observations three times a day, by means of his 
instruments, which are adjusted to a standard at Washing- 
ton. These observations are made at 8 A. m., at 4 p. m., 
and at midnight. Each post of observation is furnished 
with a clock which is regulated by the standard of Wash- 
ington time, so that the observations are taken precisely 
at the same moment all over the United States. 

The result of each observation is immediately tele- 
graphed to the Signal Office at Washington, the Govern- 
ment having made arrangements with the telegraph com- 
panies to secure the instant transmission of these mes- 
sages. The reports are limited to a fixed number of words, 
and the time of their transmission to a fixed number of 
seconds. 

The signal stations, as at present located throughout 
the country, have been chosen or located at points from 
which reports of observations will be most useful as 
indicating the general barometric pressure, or the ap- 
proach and force of storms, and from which storm warn- 
ings, as the atmospheric indications arise, may be for- 
warded, with greatest dispatch, to imperilled ports. 

The work of the observers at the stations is simple. 
It is limited to a reading; of their instruments at stated 
times, the transmission to Washington of the results of 



FOEECASTING THE WEATHER. 499 

these observations, and of information of any meteoro- 
logical facts existing at the station, when their tri-daily 
report is telegraphed to Washington. The work of the 
officers on duty at the Signal Office in Washington, is of 
a higher character, and demands of them the highest skill 
and perfect accuracy. The reports from the various sta- 
tions are read and recorded as they come in, and from 
them, the officer charged with this duty prepares a state- 
ment of the condition of the weather during the past 
twenty-four hours, and indicates the changes most likely 
to occur within the next twenty-four hours. These state- 
ments are prepared shortly after midnight, and are at 
once telegraphed to the various cities and important ports 
of the Union, in time for their publication in the news- 
papers the next morning. 

Professor Maury, of the Signal Office, thus sums up 
the working; of the service : 

" Each observer at the station writes his report on manifold 
paper. One copy lie preserves, another he gives to the tele- 
graph-operator, who telegraphs the contents to Washington. 
The preserved copy is a voucher for the report actually sent by 
the observer ; and, if the operator is careless, and makes a mis- 
take, he cannot lay the blame on the observer, who has a copy 
of his report, which must be a facsimile of the one he has 
handed to the operator. The preserved copy is afterward for- 
warded by the Observer-Sergeant to the office in Washington, 
where it is filed, and finally bound up in a volume for future 
reference. 

" When all the reports from the various stations have been 
received, they are tabulated and handed to the officer, (Pro- 
fessor Abbe,) whose duty it is to write out the synopsis and de- 
duce the ' probabilities,' which in a few minutes are to be tele- 
graphed to the press all over the country. This is a work of 



500 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

thirty minutes. The bulletin of ' probabilities,' which at pres- 
ent is all that is undertaken, is made out thrice daily, in the 
forenoon, afternoon, and after the midnight reports have been 
received, inspected, and studied out by the accomplished gentle- 
man and able meteorologist, who is at the head of this work. 
The ' probabilities ' for the weather for the ensuing day, so soon 
as written out by the Professor, are immediately telegraphed to 
all newspapers in the country who are willing to publish them 
for the benefit of their readers." 

Copies of the telegrams of " Probabilities " are also in- 
stantly sent to all boards of trade, chambers of commerce, 
merchants' exchanges, scientific societies, etc., and to con- 
spicuous places, especially sea-ports, all over the country. 

While the professor is preparing his bulletins from the 
reports just furnished him by telegraph, the sergeants 
are preparing maps which shall show, by arrows and num- 
bers, exactly what was the meteorologic condition of the 
whole country when the last reports w r ere sent in. These 
maps are printed in quantities, and give all the signal 
stations. A dozen copies are laid on the table with sheets 
of carbon paper between them, and arrow-stamps strike 
in them (by the manifold process) the direction of the 
window at each station. The other observations as to 
temperature, barometric pressure, etc., etc., are also in 
the same way put on them. These maps are displayed 
at various conspicuous points in Washington, e. g., at the 
War Department, Capitol, Observatory, Smithsonian In- 
stitute, and the office of the chief signal-officer. They 
serve also as perfect records of the weather for the day 
and hour indicated on them, and are bound up in a book 
for future use. 

Every report and paper that reaches the Signal Office 



SIGNALING THE COMING STORM. 501 

is carefully preserved on a file, so that, at the end of each 
year, the office possesses a complete history of the mete- 
orology of every day in the year, or nearly 50,000 observ- 
ations, besides the countless and continuous records from 
all of its self-registering instruments. 

When momentous storms are moving, observers send 
extra telegrams, which are dispatched, received, acted 
upon, filed, etc., precisely as are the tri-daily reports. 
One invaluable feature of the system, as now organized 
by General Meyer, is that the phenomena of any particular 
storm are not studied some days or weeks after the occur- 
rence, but while the occurrence is fresh in mind. To 
the study of every such storm, and of all the " probabil- 
ities " issued from the office, the chief signal-officer gives 
his personal and unremitting attention. As the observa- 
tions are made at so many stations, and forwarded every 
eight hours, or oftener, by special telegram from all 
quarters of the country, the movements and behavior of 
every decided storm can be precisely noted; and the ter- 
rible meteor can be tracked and " raced down " in a few 
hours or minutes. 

An instance of this occurred on the 22d of February, 
1871, just after the great storm which had fallen upon 
San Francisco. While it was still revolving round that 
city, its probable arrival at Corinne, Utah, was telegraphed 
there, and also at Cheyenne. Thousands of miles from 
its roar, the officers at the Signal Office in Washington 
indicated its track, velocity, and force. In twenty-four 
hours, as they had fore-warned Cheyenne and Omaha, it 
reached those cities. Chicago was warned twenty-four 
hours before it came. It arrived there with great vio- 
lence, unroofing houses and causing much destruction. 



502 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". 

Its course was telegraphed to Cleveland and Buffalo, both 
of which places, a day after, it duly visited. The Presi- 
dent of the Pacific Railroad has not more perfectly under 
his eye and control the train that left San Francisco, to- 
day, than General Meyer had the storm just described. 

While the observers now in the field are perfecting 
themselves in their work, the chief signal-officer is train- 
ing other sergeants at the camp of instruction (Fort 
Whipple, Virginia), who will go* forth hereafter as valued 
auxiliaries. It has been fully demonstrated by the signal- 
officer that the army of the United States is the best me- 
dium through which to conduct most efficiently and eco- 
nomically the operations of the Storm Signal-Service. 
Through the army organization the vast system of tele- 
graphy for meteorological purposes can be, and is now 
being most successfully handled. " Whatever else Gene- 
ral Meyer has not done," says the New York World, " he 
has demonstrated that there can be, and now is, a perfect 
net-work of telegraphic communication extending over 
the whole country, working in perfect order, by the signal- 
men, and capable of furnishing almost instantaneous 
messages from every point to the central office at Wash- 
ington. 

Away up on G street we see the scientific home of both 
old and young " Probabilities." We see it from afar, for 
its high Mansard seems to be stuck full of boys' kites and 
wind-mills, playing and flying with the winds. It looks 
like a gigantic play-house. Any mortal, scientific or 
otherwise, would pause before this ancient house with an 
infantile roof, and wonder what child of larger growth 
amused himself playing with all the vanes and anemome- 
ters on its roof. It is painted a pearly drab. Fresh and 



" OLD PROBABILITIES " WORKSHOP. 503 

fair, it has the effect of a youthful wig on an old man's 
head, or a girl's spring hat perched upon the head of a 
wintry old lady. Inside, the house looks less like a Skim- 
pole in brick, and really takes on a cheerfully serious air. 

On the first floor, we find two large offices, and a cozy 
little library, which stows away one thousand books, or 
more, on Meteorology, and its kindred themes. In its 
eastern hall, hang three great weather-maps, on which 
the state and changes of the weather at all the stations, 
for the past twenty-four hours, are indicated by estab- 
lished symbols. The second and third stories are occupied 
by the telegraphic corps. To this the station-work proper 
is assigned. In one room is the telegraphic apparatus, 
connecting with the many lines over which weather-re- 
ports are received from all over the country. After trans- 
lation from the cypher into every-day speech, the reports 
are combined, and the weather-bulletin prepared. On 
this floor, also, the weekly mail-reports, from the widely- 
scattered stations, are received, examined, corrected, and 
filed for future use. Here, tucked away in a little room, 
we find "Acting Probabilities " — Professor Abbe, the unerr- 
ing " weather-man," who makes ready the synopsis each 
day prepared for the Associate Press Agents, Postmas- 
ters, etc. 

We are sure, also, somewhere, to come in contact with 
" Old Probabilities " himself, supervising all. Like Pro- 
fessor Abbe, strange to say, he is a young man. General 
Meyer looks soldierly, and trig. He has fair face and 
hair, closely-cut whiskers, a ratlier small head, and a pair 
of inquiring, wise-looking eyes. The entire top floor is 
devoted to " local observations, and the gentlemen who 
play with the wind-mills and high-flying kites, upon the 



504 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

roof." Among the instruments used here, are Hough's 
barograph, a self -registering tide gauge ; Addie's London 
barometer, which is acknowledged as the standard barom- 
eter ; Gibbon's electric self-recording anemometer and 
anemoscope, the inventions of Lieutenant Gibbon, of the 
Signal-Service. The working force of the office is di- 
vided into three reliefs, each of which is on duty eight 
hours out of the twenty-four. 

Any night, one sitting by this window, at a late hour, 
may see a slender youth shooting past toward the Signal- 
Service Bureau. This is " Young Probabilities," and he 
is dressed in white. He is going to forecast the midnight 
portents for the next day. 

The positive advantage of the midnight probabilities is 
that they relate to the weather of the coming day, and 
appear at the breakfast table to tell Dick and Dolly what, 
and what not to do. The number of weather-maps issued 
daily from the central office is 600 ; from St. Louis 200 ; 
from New York 200 ; from Philadelphia, Chicago and Cin- 
cinnati 100 each, making a daily issue of ],300. All of 
these are lithographed and printed at the central office. 

"During the year 1872, 16,064 weather bulletins and 
107,888 maps were issued from the office, and 2,920 re- 
ports furnished to the press. The work of the office has 
been recently extended by the publication of the proba- 
bilities based upon the midnight reports, which are widely 
distributed through the joint agency of the Signal Bureau 
and the Post-Office Department. Four hundred copies 
are issued from the Washington office, 1,000 from New 
York, 1,500 from Cincinnati, 800 from Detroit, 1,500 from 
Chicago, and 1,000 from St. Louis, and it is expected that 
the number will be still further increased during the year. 



"PROBABILITIES " AND " PRY SIC." 505 

The printed copies are sent by mail to each post-office 
within a radius of one hundred miles of the several points 
of distribution, to which the matter is telegraphed from 
the central office." 

" The practical value of the observations on our west- 
ern rivers is strikingly illustrated by the report of the 
observer at Memphis, Tenn., who states that captains and 
pilots of boats generally decide by the reports of the Sig- 
nal Bureau, on the board on the levee at that port, whether 
the depth of the water above is sufficient to permit them 
to ascend the upper Mississippi or the Ohio. Before these 
reports were published, boats arriving during the night 
lost from six to ten hours in waiting for the telegraphic 
reports in the morning papers. 

"A curious illustration of the legal value of the reports 
is furnished by the observer at Shreveport, La., who was 
summoned as a witness in a murder case, as to the condi- 
tion of the river and the direction of the wind at the time 
of the supposed murder. These circumstances formed an 
essential part of the proof in the case. 

" Perhaps few people would have supposed that the re- 
ports of the Bureau could have any relation to the prac- 
tice of medicine, yet it is said to be a fact that many in- 
telligent physicians avail themselves of the records of the 
stations in recommending to their patient an equable and 
agreeable climate. An observer at Indianapolis reports 
that several are accustomed to note the readings of the 
barometer every morning and evening, and one of them 
assured him that he modified his prescriptions accord- 
ing to barometric changes, believing that such changes 
have a direct effect upon the condition of his patients. 

"Among the most important of the advantages connected 



506 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

with operations of the Weather Bureau are those arising 
from the continuous registering of atmospheric condi- 
tions, which will enable the scientific inquirer to deter- 
mine, from the records of the office, the degree of temper- 
ature, barometric pressure, moisture of the air, the amount 
of rainfalls, the direction of the wind at various points for 
long periods of time. Having these data for various sec- 
tions, agriculturists, microscopists, and mycologists will 
be enabled to determine in advance the probabilities as to 
the prevalence of particular classes of fungi in any district, 
and thus to indicate the adaptation of such districts for the 
cultivation of the grains, vegetables, or fruits which are 
liable to be affected by fungoid diseases. 

"The sigmal service is not without its humorous side, an 
instance of which is furnished by the observer at Fort 
Gibson, Indian Territory. The establishment of the sta- 
tion at that point, early last spring, chanced to be followed 
by a long-continued period of unusually wet and stormy 
weather. This the Indians attributed to the observer, 
whom some person of waggish propensities had repre- 
sented to them as the man that regulated the weather. 
After bearing their supposed persecution with exemplary 
fortitude for some weeks, their patience finally gave way, 
and they held an indignation meeting, at which it was se- 
riously proposed to tear clown the station. It was ulti- 
mately determined, however, to consult their agent ; and 
upon his representing to them the true state of affairs, 
they reconciled themselves to the ' weather- witch,' and 
wisely resolved to wait peacefully for better times." 



CHAPTER XLV. 

THE NAVY DEPARTMENT— THE UNITED STATES OB- 
SERVATORY—THE STATE DEPARTMENT. 

Primitive Arrangements — The Navy in Early Days — The Department of 
the Navy Established — The Secretary's Office — The Navy- Yards and 
Docks — The Bureau of Construction — The Bureau of Provisions and 
Clothing — Equipment of Vessels — Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrog- 
raphy — The Naval Observatory — The Bureau of Medicine — Interesting 
Statistics — The Navy Seventy Years Ago — The " Day of Small Things " 
— Instructions of the Great Napoleon — Keeping Pace with England — ■ 
The Glories of Foote, Ferry, Porter and Farragut— Scene from the Ob- 
servatory — Peeping Through the Telescope — The Mountains in the 
Moon — The Largest Telescope in the World — Making Mathematical 
Notes — A Passion for Star-gazing — Casting Horoscopes — Gazing for 
Pastime — " For the Sake of Science " — The Chronometers of the Gov- 
ernment — Comparing Notes — The Test of Time — Chronometers on 
Trial — The Wind and Current Charts — The Good Deeds of Lieutenant 
Maury—" The Habits of the Whale "—The Equatorial— A Self-acting 
Telescope — The Transit Instrument — The Great Astronomical Clock — 
Telling Time by Telegraph — Hearing the Clock Tick Miles Away — 
The Transit of Venus — Great Preparations — A Trifle of Half-a-Million 
of Miles — The Department of Foreign Affairs — The Secretary of State 
— A Little Secret Suggestion — The Diplomatic Bureau — The Consular 
Bureau — The Disbursing-Agent — The Translator — The Clerk-of-Ap- 
pointments — Clerk-of-the-Rolls — The Clerk-of- Authentications — Par- 
dons and Passports — The Superintendent of Statistics. 

THE first intention of the fathers of the American 
Republic was to provide for a chief clerk, under 
whose direction contracts might be made for munitions 
of war, and the inspection of provisions necessary for 
carrying on war by land or sea. 



508 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

As the maritime warfare of the United States increased 
in the brilliancy of its victories, the necessity for a sepa- 
rate organization to control its officers, and to provide for 
the feeding, equipment, and payment of its sea-faring 
warriors gradually became apparent ; but it was not until 
the thirtieth day of April, 1798, that Congress was suffi- 
ciently apprised of this necessity to pass and secure the 
approval of an " Act to establish an Executive Depart- 
ment, to be denominated the Department of the Navy," 
and on the twenty-second day of June of the same year 
an Act was passed granting the franking privilege to the 
Secretary of the Navy. 

Subsequent legislation has dealt more with the morale 
of the navy than with the functions of the department ; 
reference to various other Acts is therefore omitted. 

As organized in 1860, the department consists of the 
following officials : The Secretary ; Chief-Clerk ; Bureau 
of Navy-yards and Docks; Bureau of Provisions and 
Clothing ; Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography ; and 
the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. 

The division of labor is as follows : 

Secretary's Office : The Secretary has charge of every- 
thing connected with the naval establishment, and the 
execution of all laws relating thereto is intrusted to him, 
under the general direction of the President of the United 
States, who, by the Constitution, is Commander-in-chief 
of the Army and Navy. All instructions to commanders 
of squadrons and commanders of vessels, all orders of 
officers, commissions of officers, both in the navy and 
marine corps, appointments of commissioned and warrant- 
officers, orders for the enlistment and discharge of sea- 
men, emanate from the Secretary's office. All the duties 



THE NAVY DEPAKTMENT. 509 

of the different Bureaus are performed under the au- 
thority of the Secretary, and their orders are considered 
as emanating from him. The general superintendence 
of the marine corps forms also a part of the duties of the 
Secretary, and all the orders of the commandant of that 
corps should be approved by him. 

Bureau of Navy-yards and Docks : Chief-of-the-Bu- 
reau, four clerks, one civil-engineer and one draughtsman. 
All the navy-yards, docks and wharves, buildings and 
machinery in navy-yards, and everything immediately 
connected with them, are under the superintendence of 
this Bureau. It is also charged with the management of 
the Naval Asylum. 

Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Bepair : 
Chief-of-the Bureau, eight clerks, and one draughtsman. 
The office of the Engineer-in-chief of the Navy, who is 
assisted by three assistant-engineers, is attached to this 
Bureau. This Bureau has charge of the building and re- 
pairs of all vessels-of-war, purchase of materials, and the 
providing of all vessels with their equipments, as sails, 
anchors, water-tanks, etc. The Engineer-in-chief super- 
intends the construction of all marine steam-engines for 
the navy, and, with the approval of the Secretary, de- 
cides upon plans for their construction. 

Bureau of Provisions and Clothing: Chief-of-Bureau 
and four clerks. All provisions for the use of the navy, 
and clothing, together with the making of contracts for 
furnishing the same, come under the charge of this Bu- 
reau. 

Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography : Chief-of-Bu- 
reau, four clerks, and one draughtsman. This Bureau 
has charge of all ordnance and ordnance stores, the man- 



510 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

ufacture or purchase of cannon, guns, powder, shot, shells, 
etc., and the equipment of vessels-of-war, with every- 
thing connected therewith. It also provides them with 
maps, charts, chronometers, barometers, etc., together, 
with such books as are furnished to ships-of-war. The 
United States Naval Observatory and Hydrographical 
Office at Washington, and the Naval Academy at Annap- 
olis, are also under the general superintendence of the 
Chief of this Bureau. 

Bureau of Medicine and Surgery : Chief-of-Bureau, one 
Passed- Assistant-Surgeon United States Navy, and two 
clerks. Everything relating to medicines and medical 
stores, treatment of sick and wounded, and management 
of hospitals, comes within the superintendence of this 
Bureau. 

The following statistics may be interesting to some of 
our readers : In 1806, the number of seamen authorized 
by law was 925, to which number 3,600 were added in 
1809. In 1812, Congress authorized the President to 
employ as many as would be necessary to equip the ves- 
sels to be put in service, and to build as many vessels for 
the lakes as the public service required. In January, 
1814, there were in actual service seven frigates, two cor- 
vettes, seven sloops-of-war, two block-ships, four brigs, 
and three schooners, for sea, besides the several lake- 
squadrons, gunboats, and harbor-barges, three ships-of-the- 
line, and three frigates on the stocks. The whole num- 
ber of men and officers employed was 13,339, of which 
3,729 were able seamen, and 6,721 ordinary. The marine 
corps, as enlarged in 1814, was 2,700 men and officers. 
The commissioned naval officers combatant were 22 cap- 
tains, 18 commanders, 107 lieutenants, 450 midshipmen. 



THE UNITED STATES OBSERVATORY. 511 

In 1814, Secretary Jones reported to the Senate that 
there were three 74-gun and three 44-gun ships building, 
six new sloops-of-war built, twenty barges and one hun- 
dred and twenty gun-boats employed in the Atlantic 
waters, thirty-three vessels of all sizes for sea, afloat or 
building, and thirty-one on the lakes. Even in 1813, 
the energy of this department had led the first Napo- 
leon to issue the following instructions to his Minister of 
Marine : 

" You will receive a decree by which I order the building, at 
Toulon, at Rochefort, and at Cherburg, of a frigate of American 
construction. I am certain that the English have had built a 
considerable number of frigates on that model. They go better, 
and they adopt them; we must not be behindhand. Those 
which you will have built at Toulon, at Rochefort, and at Cher- 
burg, will manoeuvre in the roads, and give us to understand 
what to think of the model." 

Since then, in defence of the nation, the American 
Navy has won victories which placed it in the front rank 
of the navies of the world. Mobile, with the names of 
Foote, Terry, Porter and Farragut, do not pale before 
any victories or names of earth. 

A soft midsummer night, we stood upon the roof of 
the United States Observatory. Beneath us was Brad- 
dock's Hill, where, generations gone, the young surveyor 
dreamed ; and stretching far on to its guardian Capitol, 
the city which he foresaw — a verity now — its myriad 
lights twinkling through the misty distance. To our 
right was Georgetown ; beyond Arlington Heights, and 
House ; before us the Potomac, winding on to Alexan- 
dria ; above us the fathomless heavens, the waxing moon 



512 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

and silent stars. Professor Harkness moved an axle ; 
the great revolving dome turned round and parted ; the 
great telescope was pointed to the opening, and the 
broad seam of sky visible between. We mounted the 
perch, and there were the mountains in the moon ! their 
jagged edges, their yawning craters, yet only for a mo- 
ment; for earth and moon are swift travellers. In a mo- 
ment Madame Moon had outstripped our point of. vision, 
and we had to pursue her. 

Just before us was the unfinished dome of another 
observatory, wherein will soon be placed the largest 
telescope in the world. Beside us two other open 
domes, and upward pointed telescopes, told of other 
star-gazers below. We descended. There, in a dimly- 
lighted room, stood a solitary man peering through a 
telescope, its divining face uplifted to the narrow field 
of stars visible through the open dome. Hush ! An ob- 
servation ! The solitary man whose face we now see 
is aged, and his hair white, with swift and silent step 
turns from his telescope to his desk, to make his mathe- 
matical notes. 

" He need not do this unless he chooses," says Pro- 
fessor A. il He was long ago promoted above this work. 
But a man who has formed a passion for star-gazing and 
observation never gets over it." The room was dim and 
silent enough to have been given up to the presence of 
death. One felt as if some momentous operation were 
going on. The stars and the star-gazer both were felt. 
I shrank silent, into a corner, till that horoscope was cast, 
and the path of that far-away world measured to its mi- 
nutest fraction. In the opposite wing we found another 
star-gazer. Was he gazing for pastime ? Not at all. 



TESTING GOVERNMENT CHRONOMETERS. 513 

He was gazing for the Government and the sake of 
science. 

Thus, while the nation sleeps, its servants keep watch 
not only of the weather, but of remotest worlds. 

The chronometers belonging to the Government are 
kept in a room set apart for that purpose. These instru- 
ments are purchased by the Navy Department, with the 
understanding that they are to be tested in the Observa- 
tory for one year. They are placed in the chronometer 
room, and are carefully wound and regulated. They are 
examined daily, and compared with the great Astronom- 
ical Clock of the Observatory, and an accurate record of 
the movements of each one is kept in a book prepared 
for that purpose. 

The temperature of the room is also examined daily, 
and recorded. These minute records enable the officers 
of the Observatory to point out the exact fault of each 
imperfect chronometer. Thanks to this, the maker is 
enabled to remedy the defect, and the instrument is 
made perfect. At the end of the year, the instruments 
found to be unsatisfactory are returned to their makers, 
and those which pass the test are paid for. The returned 
instruments are usually overhauled by the makers, and 
the defects remedied. They are then sent back for a 
trial of another year, at the end of which time they 
rarely fail to pass. 

There are usually from sixty to one hundred chronom- 
eters on trial at the Observatory, and the apartment in 
which they are kept is one of the most interesting in the 
establishment. 

The researches connected with the famous " Wind-and 
Current-Charts," begun and prosecuted so successfully 

33 



514 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

by Lieutenant Matthew F. Maury, whose services were 
lost to the country by his participation in the Rebellion, 
are conducted here, and also those connected with " The 
Habits of the Whale," and other ocean phenomena. 

The Equatorial, which is the largest telescope in the 
Observatory, is mounted in the revolving dome which 
rises above the main building. It has a fourteen-feet 
refractor, and an object-glass nine inches in diameter. 
Its movements are most ingenious, being regulated by 
machinery and clock-work. Its powers are so great, that 
it renders stars visible at midday, and, if directed at a 
given star in the morning, its machinery will work so 
accurately, that it will follow with perfect exactness the 
path of the star, which will be visible through it as long 
as the star is above the horizon. The Meridian and Mu- 
ral Circles are in one of the rooms below. 

The Transit-Instrument is placed in the west wing of 
the building, under a slit twenty inches wide, extending 
across the roofs, and down the wall of the apartment on 
each side, to within four or five feet of the floor. It was 
made by Estel & Son, Munich, and is a seven-foot achro- 
matic, with a clear aperture of 5.3 inches. The mount- 
ing consists of two granite piers, ^even feet high, each 
formed of a solid block of that stone, let down below the 
floor and imbedded in a stone foundation eight feet deep, 
and completely isolated from the building. Midway be- 
tween the piers, and running north and south, is the arti- 
ficial horizon composed of a slab of granite ten feet long, 
nineteen inches deep, and thirteen inches broad ; it rests 
on the foundation, and is isolated from the floor, with the 
level of which the top of it is even, with a space all 
round it of half an inch. In the middle of this slab, and 



THE GREAT ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK. 515 

in the nadir of the telescope, there is a mortise, nine in- 
ches square and ten inches deep, in which the artificial 
horizon is placed to protect it from the wind during the 
adjustment for collimation, or the determination of the er- 
ror of collimation of level, and the adjustment for stellar 
focus, verticality of wires, and the other uses of the colli- 
mating eye-piece. 

The great Astronomical Clock, or "Electro-Chrono- 
graph" is placed in the same room with the Transit-In- 
strument, and is used in connection with it to denote side- 
real time. It was invented by Professor John Locke, of 
Cincinnati, and is one of the most remarkable instruments 
in the world. By means of an electrical battery in the 
building, the movements of this clock can be repeated by 
telegraph in any city or town in the land to which the 
wires extend. With the wires connected with it, its ticks 
may be heard in any part of the country, and it will re- 
cord the time so accurately that an astronomer in Port- 
land or New Orleans can tell with exactness the time of 
day by this clock. It also regulates the time for the city. 
There is a flag-staff on top of the dome, upon which a 
black ball is hoisted at ten minutes before noon, every 
day. This is to warn persons desiring to know the exact 
time to examine their watches and clocks. Just as the 
clock records the hour of twelve, the ball drops, and thus 
informs the city that it is high noon. 

The officials of the Naval Observatory have nearly com- 
pleted the plan of operation for observing the transit of 
Venus, which will occur in December, 1874. Eight par- 
ties of five persons each will be dispatched ; four to sta- 
tions in the Southern Hemisphere, and the others to the 
Northern. Those going south of the Equator will leave 



516 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

New York next spring in a naval vessel, specially prepared 
and fitted for their accommodation, while others will 
probably proceed to their stations by mail-steamer. The 
posts in the Southern Hemisphere will be on the Ker- 
guelen Islands, Auckland and Van Diemen's Land. In 
the northern station they will be located at Yokohama, 
Nangasaki, Shanghai, and near the Siberian border. 

After the transit, the observers in the Southern Hemi- 
sphere will be collected by a Government ship, transported 
to Japan, and sent home by mail-steamer, The whole 
expedition will probably occupy a year at least. Each 
party will include astronomers and photographer, with a 
complete equipment and apparatus for obtaining perfect 
observations and a record of the transit. Prof. Harkness 
will have charge of the parties and observations in the 
Southern Hemisphere, and Prof. Newcomb of those in the 
Northern. The object of the observation, for which Con- 
gress has appropriated $ 150,000, is to determine more 
accurately the distance between the earth and the sun, and 
the Professors at the head of the expedition expect to be 
able to settle the distance within half a million of miles. 

In July, 1789, Congress organized a " Department of 
Foreign .Affairs," and placed it in charge of a secretary, 
who was called the "Secretary of the Department of 
Foreign Affairs." He was required to discharge his duties 
" conformably to the instructions of the President," but 
as his powers were derived from Congress, he was required 
to hold himself amenable to that body, to attend its ses- 
sions, and to " explain all matters pertaining to his prov- 
ince." In September, 17797Congress changed the title of 
the department to the " Department of State," and made a 
definite enumeration of the duties of the Secretary. 

ie<a«A. nil - % 



THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE. 517 

The head of the Department is the Secretary-of-State. 
His subordinates are : an Assistant Secretary-of-State, a 
Chief-Clerk, a Superintendent of Statistics, a Translator, 
a Librarian, and as many clerks as are needed. The Sec- 
retary receives a salary of $8,000 per annum. He con- 
ducts all the intercourse of this Government with the 
governments of foreign countries, and is frequently re- 
quired to take a prominent part in the administration of 
domestic affairs. He countersigns all proclamations and 
official documents issued by the President. If popular 
rumor be correct, the Secretaries-of-State have frequently 
written the messages and inaugurals of the Presidents, 
and thus have kept those august personages from making 
laughing-stocks of themselves. 

The duties of the office require the exercise of the 
highest ability, and the Secretaries-of-State have usually 
been among the first statesmen of our country. The first 
incumbent of the office was Thomas Jefferson, and the 
present Secretary is the Hon. Hamilton Fish, of New 
York. 

The Diplomatic-Bureau is in charge of, and conducts 
all the official correspondence between the Department 
and the ministers and other agents of the United States 
residing abroad, and the representatives of foreign powers 
accredited to this Government. It is in this Bureau that 
all instructions sent from the Department, and communi- 
cations to commissioners under treaties of boundaries, etc., 
are prepared, copied, and recorded • all similar communi- 
cations received by the Department are registered and 
filed in this Bureau, and their contents are entered in an 
analytical table or index. 

The Consular-Bureau has charge of all correspondence 



518 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

and other business between the Department and the con- 
suls and commercial agents of the United States. Appli- 
cations for such positions are received and attended to in 
this Bureau. A concise record of all its transactions is 
kept by the clerk in charge of it. 

The Disbursing- Agent has charge of all correspondence 
and other business relating to any and all expenditures 
of money with which the Department is charged. 

The Translator is required to furnish translations of 
such documents as may be submitted to him by the 
proper officers of the Department. He also records the 
commissions of the consuls and the vice-consuls, when not 
in English, upon which exequaturs are based. 

The Clerk of Appointments and Commissions makes 
out and keeps a record of all commissions, letters of ap- 
pointment, and nominations to the Senate ; makes out 
and keeps a record of all exequaturs, and when in Eng- 
lish, the commissions on which they are issued. He also 
has charge of the Library of the Department, which is 
large and valuable. 

The Clerk of the Rolls and Archives has charge of the 
" rolls," by which are meant the enrolled acts and reso- 
lutions of Congress, as they are received by the Depart- 
ment by the President. When authenticated copies 
thereof are called for, he prepares them. He also pre- 
pares these acts and resolutions, and the various treaties 
negotiated, for publication in the newspapers and in book 
form, and superintends their passage through the press. 
He distributes through the United States the various pub- 
lications of the Department, and receives and answers all 
letters relating thereto. He has charge of all treaties 
with the Indian tribes, and all business relating to them. 



THE CLERK OF PARDONS AND PASSPORTS. 519 

The Clerk of Authentications is in charge of the Seals 
of the United States and of the Department, and pre- 
pares and attaches certificates to papers presented for 
authentication ; receives and accounts for the fees ; and 
records the correspondence of the Department, except 
the diplomatic and consular letters. He also has charge 
of all correspondence relating to territorial affairs. 

The Clerk of Pardons and Passports prepares and re- 
cords pardons and remissions of sentences by the Presi- 
dent; and registers and files the papers and petitions 
upon which they are founded. He makes out and records 
passports, and keeps a daily register of letters received, 
other than diplomatic and consular, and the disposition 
made of them. He also has charge of the correspondence 
relating to his business. 

The Superintendent of Statistics prepares the "Annual 
Report of the Secretary of State and Foreign commerce," 
as required by the acts of 1842 and 1856. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING-OFFICE — HISTORY OF 
A "PUB. DOC." 

Another Government Hive — The Largest Printing Establishment in the 
World — Judge Douglass's Villa — The Celebrated " Pub. Doc." — 
"Making Many Books" — The Convenience of a "Frank" — The 
Omnipresent "Doc." — A Weariness to the Flesh — An Average 
" Doc." — A Personal Experience — What the Nation's Printing Costs — 
"Not Worth the Paper" — A Melancholy Fact — Two Sides of the 
Question — Invaluable "Pub. Docs." — Printing a Million Money-Or- 
ders — The Stereotype Foundry — A Few Figures — The Government 
Printing- Office — A Model Office — Aiding Human Labor — Working 
by Machinery — The Ink-Room — The Private Offices — Mr. Clapp's 
Comfortable Office — The Proof- Reading Room — The Workers There 
■ — The Compositors' Room — The Women -Workers — Setting Up Her 
Daily Task — A Quiet Spot for the Executive Printing — The Tricks 
and Stratagems of Correspondents — A Private Press in the White 
House — The Supreme Pride of a Congressional Printer — Rule-and- 
Figure Work — The Executive Binding-Room — Acres of Paper — 
Specimens of Binding — The " Most Beautiful Binding in the World " 

— Specimen Copies — Binding the Surgical History of the War — The 
Ladies Require a Little More Air — Delicate Gold-Leaf Work — The 
Folding-Room — An Army of Maidens — The Stitching-Room — The 
Needles of Women — A Busy Girl at Work — " Thirty Cents Apiece" 
Getting Used to it — The Girl Over Yonder — The Manual Labor Sys- 
tem — The Story of a "Pub. Doc." — Preparing "Copy" — "Setting 
Up " — Making-Up " Forms " — Reading " Proof " — The Press-Room 

— Going to Press — Folding, Stitching, and Binding — Sent Out to 
" the Wide, Wide World." 

aETTING into the airy little Boundary car at Fif- 
teenth street, it soon brings us far out on H street 
to another busy Government hive — the largest printing 
establishment in the world. 



THE NOTORIOUS " PUB. DOC." 521 

As late as 1859, the Government Printing-Office stood 
upon the suburbs. " Judge Douglass's Villa " was then 
one of the mile-stones which marked the road thither, 
leading through grassy fields to the youngest faubourg 
of the capital. Closely-built metropolitan blocks already 
stretch far beyond it, and the great Public Printing-Of- 
fice no longer stands on the " edge " of the city. 

There is nothing so plenty in "Washington, not even 
Congressmen, as the "Pub. Doc." We see it every- 
where, and in every shape. Piles on piles of huge un- 
bound pamphlets, cumber and crowd the narrow lodgings 
of the average Congressman, waiting the superscription, 
and formerly the "frank," which was to convey each 
one to ten thousand dear constituents. They cram every 
available nook, "up stairs, down stairs, and in my lady's 
chamber." They are patent receptacles for the dust, 
which defies extermination. They overflow every pub- 
lic archive, and, falling down and running over, demand 
that greater shall be builded. Thousands on thousands 
have no covers, and tens of thousands more are clad in 
purple and fine linen. The average Public Doc. is a 
weariness to flesh and spirit. You get tired of the 
sight — so many, so many ! And as for the knowledge 
which it contains, it may be of infinite value to mankind, 
but the pursuit of it through endless tables, reports, 
briefs and statements is a weariness to the soul. I have 
tried it and know. If I had not, you might never have 
known how many of these " Pub. Doc's " are printed by 
the Government, what for, and at what cost. 

Well, I will give you a few items in figures, as they 
appear on the books of the office. Of all executive and 
miscellaneous documents and reports of Committees., 



522 



TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 



there were printed in the Government Printing-Office, 
last year, one thousand six hundred and twenty-five 
copies for the Senate, and one thousand six hundred and 
fifty for the House, also eight hundred and twenty-five 
copies of bills and resolutions for the Senate and House 
each. 

Statement showing the cost of Public Printing done 
in the Government Printing-Office in the year 1872 : 



Department. 



State Department. 

Treasury Department 

Interior Department 

War Department % 

Navy Department 

Judiciary Department 

Post-Office Department 

Department of .Agriculture.... 
Office of Congressional Printer 

Total 



Printing and Paper 
for same. 



$8,445 45 

141,933 17 

128,414 53 

45,171 69 

52, '56 77 

3«,303 02 

81,301 63 

9,828 29 

1,077 43 



$4,244 40 
65,809 27 
37,593 76 
29,049 83 
12,302 95 

1.219 37 
46,817 28 

7,599 77 
135 54 



CO ^ 



H 



$12,689 85 
207,742 44 
166,008 29 
74,221 52 
64,459 72 
39 522 39 
128,118 91 
17,428 06 
1,212 97 



506,631 98 204,772 17 711,404 15 324,902 87 1,036,307 02 



n 



$11,416 55 

115,119 06 

59,789 71 

68,184 57 

23,541 68 

2,951 02 

39,247 44 

4,362 39 

290 45 



2 g> M 

g .5 a 

™ -^ s 

£ c a 

^ '5 -S 

M A •& 



$24,106 40 

322 861 50 

225,798 00 

142,406 09 

88,001 40 

42.473 41 

167,366 35 

21,790 45 

1,503 42 



Tens of thousands of public documents are published 
here whose intrinsic value is not worth the paper they 
are printed on. After witnessing the manual labor ex- 
pended on them, it is melancholy to reflect that, with it 
all, they are often less valuable than the unsullied paper 
would be. 

While this is true of an immense number of "bills" 
and documents, and reports of contested election cases 
printed in this building, it is equally true that thousands 
of others are published here which are of extreme value 
not only to the Government but the world. 



COST OF THE NATIONAL PRINTING. 523 

It is through the presses of the Government Printing- 
House that the- public is informed what the Government 
is doing for science and for philanthropy. It prints all 
the reports of the Smithsonian Institution ; Professor 
Hayden's reports of yearly United States Geological Sur- 
veys, including his very interesting and valuable reports 
on Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, and the famous Yel- 
lowstone Valley. The Medical Reports of the War ; Sur- 
geon-General Barnes' Medical and Surgical History of 
the War; and Chief-Medical-Purveyor Baxter's Report 
of the Medical Statistics of the Provost-Marshal-General's 
Bureau ; Reports on the Diseases of Cattle in the United 
States ; on Mines and Mining ; Postal Code and Coast- 
Survey Reports ; Reports of Commission of Education ; 
of the Commissioner of the United States to the Interna- 
tional Penitentiary Congress at London ; Reports of the 
Government Institution for Deaf and Dumb and the In- 
sane, etc. 

These make a very small proportion of the really in- 
teresting and valuable reports issued yearly by the Gov- 
ernment. 

When we remember that many of these works are 
accompanied by copious maps and illustrations, and that 
the processes of photolithographing, lithographing and 
engraving are all executed within these walls, you can 
form some estimate of the value of its services to the 
country. 

The demands made upon it by each single department 
of the Government is immense. The Post-Office will 
send in a single order for the printing of one million 
money-orders ; and the other departments cry out to 
have their wants supplied in the same proportion. 



524 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

The Stereotype Foundry, under the same roof, long 
ago vindicated itself in the facts of convenience and econ- 
omy. The following is a correct exhibit of the product 
of its labor for the year ending September 30, 1872 : 

Value of plates, &c., manufactured, at trade-prices, $35,371 08 
Amount expended for labor and material consumed, 16,516 80 

Net saving to the Government, . . . 118,854 28 

The Government Prin ting-Office, from an external 
view, is a large, long, plain brick building of four stories, 
with a cupola in the centre, and flag-staffs at either end, 
from which the National banner floats on gala days. If 
we enter from H street, a large open door on the side re- 
veals to us at once the power-press room, with its wheels 
and belts ; its women-workers and its mighty engine. This 
engine of eighty-horse power, swings its giant lever to and 
fro, with the accuracy of a chronometer. The boiler which 
supplies its steam-power is placed in a separate building, 
so that in case of explosion the danger to human life 
would be lessened. This boiler also supplies steam for 
heating the entire main building, and for propelling a 
" donkey engine," which performs the more menial labor 
of pumping water. 

This is not only the largest, but is one of the model 
printing-houses of the world. Its typographical arrange- 
ments are perfect, and in each department it is supplied 
with every appliance of ingenious and exquisite mechan- 
ism to save human muscle and to aid human labor. In 
the press-room, stretching before and on either side of the 
majestic engine, we see scores of ponderous presses, their 
swiftly-flying rollers moving with the perfect time of a 



THE GOVEKNMENT PKINTING-OFFICE. 525 

watch — at each revolution clinching the unsullied sheet 
of paper which, in an instant more, it tosses forth a 
printed page. 

When Benjamin Franklin tugged away at the little 
printing-press now exhibited at the Patent-Office, an 
enormous amount of human muscle was needed to per- 
form press-work; but now, without effort and without 
fatigue, the tireless engine supplies the material power, 
while women do the work. On the lower floor of the 
main building we find the wetting room, filled with 
troughs and all the liquids for dampening the immense 
supply of paper, beside the hydraulic presses for smooth- 
ing it. On this floor also is the " ink room," with its vast 
supplies of " lamp-black and oil " always ready for the 
rollers. 

Ascending to the second story we come to the business 
and private offices of the Government Printer — his clerks, 
telegraph-operators, copy-holders, and proof-readers. Mr. 
A. M. Clapp, a man of clear intellectual out-look, of be- 
nign expression and venerable years, occupies a pleasant 
parlor for an office, furnished with plain desk, chairs, a 
mirror, engravings and a Brussels' carpet ; it opens into a 
suite of rooms occupied by the Chief-Clerk, the Pay- 
master and the Telegraph-Operator. 

On the other side of the hall, we pass the open door 
of the proof-reading room. This is comfortably filled with 
men, young and old. The copy-holder and the proof- 
reader sit side by side, before a table or desk. The copy- 
holder has in his hands the original manuscript, from 
which he slowly reads, while the proof-reader listens, 
proof-sheets and pencil in hand, erasing each error in 
print as he detects it, from the lips of the copy-holder. 



526 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

The proof-reader is paid $26, the copy-holder $24 per 
week. 

Ascending a few steps, we come into the composition 
room, occupying the central and larger portion of the 
second story. It contains sixty or more windows, is spa- 
cious and well-lighted, and yet, especially in the winter, 
when the windows are closed and the heat necessarily in- 
tense, the fumes from the chemicals render the work very 
unhealthy, especially to some constitutions. Long rows of 
double stands reach the entire length of the apartment. 

At every one of these stands a patient worker — he 
must be patient if he is a faithful type-setter. Here are 
men past their prime, young men, boys and one woman. 
There have been three. One left her stand for a husband, 
another — Miss Mary Green — left hers to become the edi- 
tor of a real-estate journal in Indianapolis, Indiana. The 
third, in neat calico dress and apron, stands beside a win- 
dow, " setting up " her daily task. The pay of women 
in this room is the same as that of the men, viz., $24 per 
week. 

A portion of this floor is shut in for the executive 
printing. This was made necessary by the fact that be- 
fore it was done, the country found out what was in the 
president's message before it was published. Such tricks 
and stratagems were used by "correspondents" to dis- 
cover in advance what was in the president's message, 
that one president had a press, types and workmen 
brought into the White House, that he might have his 
message confidentially printed, and "keep it to himself" 
till he was ready to give it to the world. 

The supreme pride of these congressional printers is 
their " rule-and-figure work." Confused tables of Com- 



INSIDE THE PRINTING-OFFICE. 527 

mercial statistics, astronomical calculations, and abstracts 
of Government estimates, are marshalled into columns 
with the precision of a well-trained brigade. 

The executive binding-room is fitted up with powerful 
machines for trimming the edges of books, shears for 
cutting pasteboard, etc. Here stands a man who does 
nothing, from the beginning to the end of the year, but 
cut book-covers. In another room are " ruling machines," 
exquisite pieces of mechanism, which trace, in a year, 
acres of paper with the delicate red, blue or black lines 
which rule with mathematical accuracy the blank-books 
of the Government. 

The third floor is almost exclusively devoted to bind- 
ing. Some of the most beautifully bound books in the 
world here issue from the hands of the Government 
bindery. There are always specimen-copies of scientific 
and other important reports, which are bound in Turkey 
morocco, finely marbled and exquisitely gilded. The first 
volume of the Surgeon-General's* Medical and Surgical 
History of the War, on the day of our visit, was receiv- 
ing this artistic finish, of delicate gold leaf, stamped upon 
the rich, dark-green morocco. 

The furnaces for heating the stamps, for gilding, are 
heated by gas, which is considered safer, cleaner and 
healthier than charcoal. Still the ladies employed in 
this gold-leaf work suffer for want of air. The hottest 
summer day the windows have to remain closed, as the 
lightest zephyr may ruffle fatally the mimosa edges of 
the tremulous foil. 

In the folding-room, on this floor, we find an army of 
maidens, whose deft and flying fingers fold the sheets, 
and make them ready for the binder. In the new wing 



528 TEN TEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

beyond we come into the " stitching-room." Here also 
the busy fingers and needles of women fly. Long rows 
of women, chiefly young girls, sit at tables beside wire 
frames, which hold down and mark the piled-up folios. 

Standing beside a young slender girl, she seemed to 
have the St. Vitus' dance. Every muscle and nerve in 
her body flew. The very nerves in her face twitched 
with the quick intensity of her movement ; while her 
fingers stuck the needle and drew the thread with the 
persistency of a perpetual motion. 

" You should be paid good wages to work like this," I 
said. 

" It is because I am paid so little that I have to. work 
like this," she answered, not relaxing an atom. 

" How much ? " 

"Thirty cents a-piece." 

" How many can you stitch a day ? " • 

" Well, if I work like this all day, nine." 

" But I should think it would kill you to work like this 
all the time." 

"I've been doing it for four years, and I'm not dead 
yet."_ 

I did not inform her that she looked as if she soon 
would be, but asked, " Doesn't such constant, quick ac- 
tion give you pain ? " 

"Yes, in my shoulders, but I've got used to it." 

"Does any one else in this room stitch as fast as 
you do ? " 

" Only one," said a smiling girl who rested with her 
needle in her mouth to admire her dextrous companion. 
" There is only one other who can work as fast as she ; 
it is that girl, over yonder." 



THE STORY OF A " PUB DOC.-' 529 

There are no drones in this busy hive. The whole 
routine is based upon the manual labor system. The 
Government employe, man or woman, in the Government 
Printing-Office, instead of from 9 A. M to 3 P. M., as in 
all other departments, works from 8 A. M. to 5 P. M., and 
for smaller pay, proportionally, than is received in any 
other public Bureau. 

Having told you the ' story of a Dollar, I will now tell 
that of a " Pub. Doc." — hoping that the next time you 
feel inclined to kick it for the dust it gathers, and the 
room it takes up, you will forgive it these misfortunes, 
for the sake of the many busy and patient human hands 
which fashioned it. 

First, it appears in the room of the Government Printer 
in the shape of a huge pile of manuscript. Perhaps it is 
in copper-plate hand, "plain as print;" perhaps, as is 
more likely, it is a bundle of unsightly hieroglyphics writ- 
ten on " rags and tags " of paper of all sorts and sizes. 
However it looks, in due time it appears in the composing- 
room, accompanied with the directions of the Government 
Printer. It is received by the foreman, who divides it 
into portions, or " takes," and it is now " copy." 

This copy is put in the hands of compositors, who place 
it, every word and figure, into what is called a " composing 
stick." When these are filled with the set-up type, they 
are emptied on wooden boards called " galleys." Here 
the type is divided into pages, each one of which is tied 
round with twine so that it can be carried away by a 
practiced hand. These pages are now arranged on the 
imposing-stones, either by fours or by eights, or by twelves, 
as the work is to be printed in quarto, in octavo, or in duo- 
decimo form. The pages are so regulated that when the 

34: 



530 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON". 

printed sheet is folded, they will read consecutively, and 
they are then wedged tightly in a "chase," or frame of iron. 
These pages of type thus placed are called " forms." 

A rough impression of a form having been printed, it 
is given to the proof-reader, who, with the copy-holder, 
notes all errors with printers' marks. The compositor 
next receives these corrected pages ; re-sets all wrong let- 
ters with the right ones. When he has finished, he takes 
a second proof impression, called a revise, which the 
proof-reader compares with the first one, to see if all the 
errors have been accurately corrected. This process of 
revising is* repeated four times, when the form is at last 
ready for the press. 

It is then lowered by steam-power into the press-room. 
The form is laid upon a smooth iron table, called " the 
bed of the press," where it is treated to a good beating. 
It is levelled by a block of wood called a planer, and 
pounded with a mallet, that no aspiring type may stick 
its nose above its fellows, and mar the perfect level of the 
printed page. 

Meanwhile, a sufficient quantity of paper has been 
taken from the public store-house to the wetting-room. 
There it has been dampened, quire by quire, turned and 
laid in piles under the crushing pressure of an hydraulic- 
pump, worked by steam-power. When taken out the 
paper is ready* for the press. 

The rollers are brought from the room in which they 
are cleaned and kept, and set in the press. The ink 
fountain is filled. Sheet on sheet of spotless paper is 
placed aloft. The young woman who is to " tend " mounts 
to her perch. The steam-power is applied, and the print- 
ing begins. 



"in press." 531 

The maiden takes in her hand a single snowy sheet, 
and spreads it on the inclined plane before her. It is 
caught by steel fingers and clutched into the abyss be- 
neath. There it passes swiftly over the pages of type 
just moistened with ink from the rollers, which were pre- 
viously coated by revolving cylinders. When the sheet 
is directly above the type, its flight is for an instant 
staj^ed, and by a potent mechanical movement the im- 
pression is given, and the sheet is printed. Onward it 
moves transfigured, till, by the puff of a pair of bellows, 
it is thrown upon a frame-work which throws it, smooth 
and fresh, upon a table on the opposite side of the table, 
and by this time another is on its way. Swiftly almost 
as thought it is tossed above it. In a briefer time than 
the process is traced, the unsullied sheets above have been 
transmuted into printed pages piled upon the table below. 

Only one side of a sheet is printed at a time ; thus 
each one goes through the press twice before it leaves the 
press-room. Each sheet has its own special care. It is 
carried into the drying-room with a pile. Each one takes 
its place on a large frame which is pulled out on hanging 
rollers. When one of these frames is covered with damp 
sheets it is pushed into the drying-machine, which is made 
of ranges of steam tubes, which keep a high temperature, 
while the vapor is carried off by a system of ventilation. 

When the sheets are dried, the frames are pulled out, 
and the printed sheets are taken from them to be pressed. 
Each printed sheet is put between two sheets of hard, 
smooth pasteboard, and its high piles of alternate layers 
are subjected again to the intense power of the hydraulic- 
press. It comes forth from that embrace smooth, clear, 
complete. 



532 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

From the pressing-room the sheets are taken to the 
folding-room in the third story, conveyed thither by an 
elevator lifted by steam. Here it is folded by the swift 
hands of girls. Hundreds are busy at it. Looking down 
the long room and seeing them work is a sight worth 
quite a journey to see. The folded pages then pass to 
the fingers of the eager stitchers. These pages are now 
a book in need of a binding. Thus it comes into the 
bindery for its black cotton cloak, or its coat of cloth of 
gold, according to its station and lot in life. 

This, good friends, is the story of a Pub. Doc. from its 
birth to the hour when it starts on its first journey out 
into " the wide, wide world." 



CHAPTER XLVn. 

THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION— THE AGRICULTURAL 

BUREAU. 

A Singular Bequest — Strange Story of James Smithson — A Good Use of 
Money — Seeking the Diffusion of Knowledge — Catching a Tear from a 
Lady's Cheek — Analysis of the Same Tear — The Attainments of a Phi- 
losopher — A brief Tract on Coffee-Making — James Smithson's Will — 
A Genealogical Declaration — Announcing a Bequest to Congress — Dis- 
cussions and Reports — Praiseworthy Efforts of Robert Dale Owen — The 
Bequest Accepted — The Board of Regents — The Plan of the Institu- 
tion — Rs Intent and Object — Changes Made by the Regents — Ex-Officio 
Members of the Institution — " The Power Behind the Throne " — The 
Secretary — The Smithsonian Reservation — The Smithsonian Building — 
Its Style of Architecture — Inside the Building — Injuries Received by 
Fire — Loss of Works of Art — The Museum — Treasures of Art and Sci- 
ence — The Results of Thirty Government Expeditions — The Largest 
Collection in the World — Valuable Mineral Specimens — All the Verte- 
brated Animals of North America — Classified Curiosities — The Smithso- 
nian Contributions — Comprehensive Character of the Institution — Its 
Advantages and Operations — Results — The Agricultural Bureau — Its 
Plan and Object — Collecting Valuable Agricultural Facts — Helping the 
Purchaser of a Farm — The Expenses of the Bureau — The Library — Na- 
ture-Printing— In .the Museum — The Great California Plank — Vegetable 
Specimens — International Exchanges. 

AN Englishman, of the name of James -Smithson, 
gave all his property to the United States of 
America, to found at Washington, under the name of the 
Smithsonian Institution, " an establishment for the in- 
crease and diffusion of knowledge among men." 

But few are aware of the singularity of the bequest. 
Such a donation, from a citizen of Europe, would be re- 



534 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

markable under any circumstances ; but it was much 
more singular coming from an Englishman, endued with 
no small degree of pride of country and lineage, if we 
may judge from the pains he takes, in the caption of his 
will, to detail his descent from the nobility. He is not 
known to have ever visited the United States, or to have 
had any friends residing here. Mr. Rush informs us that 
he was a natural son of the Duke of Northumberland, 
his mother being Mrs. Macie, of an ancient family in 
Wiltshire, of the name of Hungerford ; he was educated 
at Oxford, where he took an honorary degree. In 1786, 
he took the name of James Lewis Macie, until a few 
.years after he left the University, when he changed it to 
Smithson. He does not appear to have had any fixed 
home, living in lodgings when in London, and occasion- 
ally, a year or two at a time, in the cities on the conti- 
nent, as Paris, Berlin, Florence, and Genoa ; at which 
last place he died. The ample provision made for him 
by the Duke of Northumberland, with retired and sim- 
ple habits, enabled him to accumulate the fortune which 
passed to the United States. He interested himself little 
in questions of government, being devoted to science, and 
chiefly to chemistry. This had introduced him to the 
society of Cavendish, Wollaston, . and others, advanta- 
geously known .to the Eoyal Society in London, of which 
he was a member. 

In a paper relative to one of the publications of the 
Smithsonian Institution, read before a scientific society at 
Dublin, it is stated, on the authority of Chambers' Jour- 
nal, that he had gained a name by the analysis of minute 
quantities, and that " it was he who caught a tear as it 
fell from a lady's cheek, and detected the salts and other 
substances which it held in solution." 



THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 535 

In a notice of his scientific pursuits, by Professor John- 
son, of Philadelphia, there are enumerated twenty-four 
papers, or treatises by Smithson, published in the Trans- 
actions of the Royal Society, and other scientific jour- 
nals of the day, containing articles on mineralogy, geol- 
ogy, and more especially mineral chemistry. In the 
Annals of Philosophy (Vol. 22, page 30) he has a brief 
tract on the method of making coffee. The small case 
of his personal effects, which is to be preserved in a sep- 
arate apartment of the Institution, consists chiefly of 
minerals and chemical apparatus. 

The will indicates a degree of sensitiveness on the sub- 
ject of his illegitimacy. He starts with a declaration of 
pedigree : 

I, James Smithson, son of Hough, first Duke of Northumber- 
land, and Elizabeth, heiress of the Hungerfords of Audley, and 
niece of Charles the Proud, Duke of Somerset, now residing in 
Bentinck street, Cavendish Square, do make this my last will . 
and testament, ...... 

" To found at Washington, under the name of the Smithso- 
nian Institution, an establishment For the Increase and 
Diffusion of Knowledge among Men." 

The bequest was first announced to Congress by Pres- 
ident Jackson, in 1835. Long discussions and reports 
followed ; first, upon the propriety of accepting the trust; 
and next, upon the kind of institution to be established ; 
in the course of which the ablest minds in the country, 
in and out of Congress, gave expression to their views. 
The report of Mr. Adams was particularly eloquent. 
The objection to receiving the bequest was based mainly 
upon the alleged absence of constitutional power, but 
partly upon policy. 



536 TEN" YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

The discussion as to the kind of institution which would 
best fulfil the testator's intention, extended through a 
series of years, and led to almost every possible proposi- 
tion. I shall not attempt to give even an outline of these 
debates, which finally culminated in the adoption of a 
somewhat mixed scheme, allowing of almost anything. 
To Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, is mainly due the 
credit of finally pressing the bill to a vote. The Act re- 
quired that there be provided a hall qr halls for a library, 
a museum, a chemical laboratory, necessary lecture- 
rooms, and a gallery of art. 

The Board of Regents, in whose hands the control of 
the institution is vested, drew up the following general 
plan, upon which the operations of the institution have 
been conducted, this plan being, in their judgment, best 
calculated to carry into effect the wishes of the founder : 

To Increase Knowledge : It is proposed — first, to stimulate 
men of talent to make original researches, by offering suitable 
rewards for memoirs containing new truths ; and, second, to 
appropriate annually a portion of the income for particular re- 
searches, under the direction of suitable persons. 

To Diffuse Knowledge : It is proposed — first, to publish a 
series of periodical reports on the progress of the different 
branches of knowledge; and, second, to publish occasionally 
separate treatises on subjects of general interest. 
' Details of Plan to Increase Knowledge by Stimulating Re- 
searches : First, facilities to be afforded for the production of 
original memoirs on all branches of knowledge. Second,, the 
memoirs thus obtained to be published in a series of volumes, in 
a quarto form, and entitled Smithsonian Contributions to Knowl- 
edge. Third, no memoir, on subjects of physical science, to be 
accepted for publication, which does not furnish a positive addi- 
tion to human knowledge, resting on original research ; and all 



GENERAL PLAN OF THE INSTITUTION. 537 

unverified speculations to be rejected. Fourth, each memoir 
presented to the institution to be submitted for examination to 
a commission of persons of reputation for learning in the branch 
to which the memoir pertains, and to be accepted for publica- 
tion only in case the report of this commission is favorable. 
Fifth, the Commission to be chosen by officers of the Institution, 
and the name of the author, as far as practicable, concealed, 
unless a favorable decision be made. Sixth, the volumes of the 
memoirs to be changed for the transactions of literary and sci- 
entific societies, and copies to be given to all the colleges and 
principal libraries in this country. One part of the remaining 
copies may be offered for sale, and the other carefully preserved, 
to form complete sets of the work to supply the demand for new 
institutions. Seventh, an abstract, or popular account, of the 
contents of these memoirs, to be given to the public through 
the annual reports of the Regents to Congress. 

By Appropriating a Part of the Income, Annually, to Special 
Objects of Research, under the Direction of Suitable Persons: 
First, the objects, and the amount appropriated, to be recom- 
mended by Councillors of the Institution. Second, appropria- 
tions in different years to different objects ; so that, in course of 
time, each branch of knowledge may receive a share. Third, 
the results obtained from these appropriations to be published, 
with the memoirs before mentioned, in the volumes of the 
Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Fourth, examples of 
objects for which appropriations may be made : 1. System of 
extended meteorological observations for solving the problem 
of American storms ; 2. Explorations in descriptive natural 
history, and geological, magnetical, and topographical surveys, 
to collect materials for the formation of a physical atlas of the 
United States ; 3. Solution of experimental problems, such as a 
new determination of the weight of the earth, of the velocity 
of electricity and of light ; chemical analyses of soils and plants ; 
collection and publication of scientific facts accumulated in the 
offices of Government ; 4. Institution of statistical inquiries 
with reference to physical, moral, and political subjects ; 5. His- 



538 TEN" TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

torical researches, and accurate surveys of places celebrated in 
American history ; 6. Ethnological researches, particularly with 
reference to the different races of men in North America ; also, 
explorations and accurate surveys of the mounds and other re- 
mains of the ancient people of our country. 

Details of the Plan for Diffusing Knowledge : First, by the 
publication of a series of reports, giving an account of the new 
discoveries in science, and of the changes made from year to 
year in all branches of knowledge, not strictly professional. 
These reports will diffuse a kind of knowledge generally inter- 
esting, but which, at present, is inaccessible to the public. Some 
reports may be published annually, others at longer intervals, as 
the income of the Institution or the changes in the branches of 
knowledge may indicate. Second, the reports are to be pre- 
pared by collaborators eminent in the different branches of 
knowledge. Third, each collaborator to be furnished with the 
journals and publications, domestic and foreign, necessary to the 
compilation of his report ; to be paid a certain sum for his la- 
bors, and to be named on the title-page of the report. Fourth, 
the reports to be published in separate parts, so that persons 
interested in a particular branch can procure the parts relating 
to it without purchasing the whole. Fifth, these reports may be 
presented to Congress for partial distribution, the remaining 
copies to be given to literary and scientific institutions, and sold 
to individuals for a moderate price. 

By the Publication of Separate Treatises on Subjects of Gen- 
eral Interest : First, these treatises may occasionally consist of 
valuable memoirs translated from foreign languages, or of arti- 
cles prepared under the direction of the Institution, or procured 
by offering premiums for the best exposition of a given subject. 
Second, the treatises should, in all cases, be submitted to a com- 
mission of competent judges, previous to their publication. 

" The only changes made in the policy above indicated 
have been the passage of resolutions, by the Regents, re- 
pealing the equal divison of the income between the act- 



HOW THE INSTITUTION IS GOVERNED. 539 

ive operations and the museum and library, and further 
j)roviding that the annual appropriations are to be appor- 
tioned specifically among the different objects and opera- 
tions of the Institution, in such manner as may, in the 
judgment of the Regents, be necessary and proper for 
each, according to its intrinsic importance, and a compli- 
ance in good faith with the law." 

The Act of Congress, organizing the Institution, makes 
the President and Vice-President of the United States, 
the Cabinet Ministers, the Chief-Justice of the United 
States, the Cabinet Ministers and the Mayor of Washing- 
ton, members ex officio of the Institution. The Board of Re- 
gents charged with the control of the Institution, consists 
of the President of the United States, the Mayor of Wash- 
ington, three Senators of the United States, three mem- 
bers of the House of Representatives, who are ex officio 
Regents, six persons, not members of Congress, two of 
whom must be citizens of Washington, and members of 
the National Institute of that city, and the other four 
citizens of any of the states of the Union, no two of 
whom are to be chosen from the same state. The Board 
of Regents make annual reports of their conduct of the 
Institution to Congress. 

The real " power behind the throne " is the Secretary 
of the Institution, who is executive officer. He has 
charge of the edifice, its contents, and the grounds, and 
is given as many assistants, as are necessary to enable 
him to conduct the varied operations of the Institution. 
The property of the Institution is placed under the pro- 
tection of the laws for the preservation and safe keeping 
of the public buildings and grounds of the City of Wash- 
ington. 



540 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON". 

Upon the organization of the Institution, Congress set 
apart for its use a portion of the public ground lying 
westward of the Capitol, and between it and the Poto- 
mac River. Fifty-two acres comprised the grant, which 
was known as the "Smithsonian Reservation." They 
were laid out under the supervision of Andrew Jackson 
Downing. He died while engaged in this work, and his 
memory is perpetuated by a memorial erected in the 
grounds in 1852, by the American Pomological Society, 
and consisting of a massive vase resting on a handsome 
pedestal, with appropriate inscriptions, the whole being 
of the finest Italian marble. 

The building is situated near the centre of the grounds 
as they originally existed, the centre of the edifice b em g 
immediately opposite Tenth Street west. It is construc- 
ted of a fine quality of lilac-gray freestone, found in the 
new red sandstone formation, where it crosses the Poto- 
mac, near the mouth of Seneca Creek, one of the tribu- 
taries of that river, and about twenty-three miles above 
Washington. The stone is very soft at first, and is quarried 
with comparative ease. In its fresh state, it may be 
worked with the chisel and hammer ; but it hardens rap- 
idly upon exposure to the air and weather, and will with- 
stand, after a time, the severest usage. 

The structure is in the style of architecture belonging 
to the last half of the twelfth century, the latest variety 
of rounded style, as it is found immediately anterior to 
its merging into the early Gothic, and is known as the 
Norman, the Lombard, or Romanesque. The semi-circu- 
lar arch, stilted, is employed throughout, in door, windows, 
and other openings. 

The main building is 205 feet long by 57 feet wide, 



THE RAVAGES OF FIRE. 541 

and to the top of the corbel course, 58 feet high. The 
east wing is 82 by 52 feet, and to the top of its battle- 
ment, 42| feet high. The west wing, including its pro- 
jecting apsis, is 84 by 40 feet, and 38 feet high. Each 
of the wings is connected with the main building by a 
range which, including its cloisters, is 60 feet long by 49 
feet wide. This makes the length of the entire building, 
from east to west, 447 feet. Its greatest breadth is 160 
feet. 

The north front of the main building has two central 
towers, the loftiest of which is 150 feet high. It has also 
a broad, covered carriage-way, upon which opens the 
main entrance to the building. The south central tower 
is 37 feet square, 91 feet high, and massively constructed. 
A double campanile tower, 17 feet square, 117 feet high, 
rises from the north-east corner of the main building ; 
and the south-west corner has an imposing octagonal 
tower, in which is a spiral stair-way, leading to the sum- 
mit. There are four other smaller towers of lesser hights, 
making nine in all, the effect of which is very beautiful, 
and which once caused a wit to remark that it seemed to 
him as if a " collection of church steeples had gotten 
lost, and were consulting together as to the best means 
of getting home to their respective churches." 

The building was much injured by fire in January, 
1865. The flames destroyed the upper part of the main 
buildings, and the towers. Although the lower story 
was saved, the valuable official, scientific, and miscella- 
neous correspondence, record-books, and manuscripts in 
the Secretary's office, the large collection of scientific 
apparatus, the personal effects of James Smithson, Stan- 
ley's Collection of Indian Portraits, and much other val- 



542 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

uable property were destroyed. Fortunately, the Li- 
brary, Museum, and Laboratory were uninjured. The 
fire made no interruption in the practical workings of 
the Institution, and in a comparatively short space of 
time the burned portions were restored. 

The museum occupies the ground-floor, and is the prin- 
cipal attraction to a large portion of the visitors. It is 
a spacious hall, containing two tiers of cases, in which are 
placed the specimens on exhibition. Access to the upper 
tier of cases is had by means of a light iron gallery, 
which is reached by stair-ways of the same material. 
The Official* Guide to the Institution, thus describes the 
Museum : 

Under these provisions, the Institution has received 
and taken charge of such Government collections in min- 
eralogy, geology and natural history, as have been made 
since its organization. The amount of these has been 
very great, as all the United States geological, boundary, 
and railroad surveys, with the various topographical, 
military, and naval explorations, have been, to a greater 
or less extent, ordered to make such collections as would 
illustrate the physical and natural history features of the 
regions traversed. 

Of the collections made by thirty Government expedi- 
tions, those of twenty-five are now deposited with the 
Smithsonian Institution, embracing more than five-sixths 
of the whole amount of materials collected. The princi- 
ple expeditions thus furnishing collections are the United 
States Geological Surveys of Doctors Owen, Jackson, and 
Evans, and Messrs Foster and Whitney ; the United States 
and Mexican boundary survey ; the Pacific Railroad sur- 
vey ; the exploration of the Yellowstone, by Lieutenant 



THE TREASURES OF THE INSTITUTION". 543 

Warren ; the survey of Lieutenant Bryant ; The United 
States naval astronomical expedition ; the North Pacific 
Behring's Strait expedition; * the Japan expedition, and 
Paraguay expedition. 

The Institution has also received, from other sources, 
collections of greater or less extent, from various por- 
tions of North America, tending to complete the Govern- 
ment series. 

The collections thus made, taken as a whole, consti- 
tute the largest and best series of the minerals, fossils, 
rocks, animals, and plants of the entire continent of 
North America, in the world. Many tons of geological 
and mineralogical specimens, illustrating the surveys 
throughout the West, are embraced therein. There is 
also a very large collection of minerals of the mining 
regions of Northern Mexico, and of New Mexico, made 
by a practical Mexican geologist, during a period of 
twenty-five years, and furnishing indications of many 
rich mining localities within our own borders, yet un- 
known to the American people, 

It includes also, with scarcely an exception, all the 
vertebrate animals of North America. The greater part 
of the mammalia have been arranged in walnut drawers, 
made proof against dust and insects. The birds have 
been similarly treated, while the reptiles and fish have 
been classified, as, to some extent, have also been the 
shells; minerals, fossils, and plants. 

The Museum hall is quite large enough to contain 
all the collections hitherto made, as well as such others 
as may be assigned to it. No single room in the country 
is, perhaps, equal to it in capacity or adaptation to its 
purposes, as, by the arrangements now being perfected 3 



544 TEN TEAKS IN" WASHINGTON. 

and denoted in the illustration, it is capable of receiving 
twice as large a surface of cases as the old Patent-Office 
hall, and three times that of the Academy of Sciences of 
Philadelphia. 

The Smithsonian Contributions are the work of men 
residing in every part of the United States. Does an 
individual think he has the data upon which to base an 
important discovery, he communicates his plans to the 
Institution. His suggestions are referred to men in other 
places, who have made that branch an especial subject of 
study, and who are not advised of the author's name. If 
they report favorably upon it, the author is furnished 
with facilities for pursuing and describing his investiga- 
tions. Does he want some book not to be found in the 
library nearest his home ? The Institution purchases it 
and loans it to him, to be returned to the library. His 
work, when finished, may be invaluable to a scientific 
man, but is not in sufficient demand to warrant any pub- 
lisher in issuing it. The Institution prints it, with the 
proper illustrations, and gives the author the privilege 
of using the plates in order to print a copyright for sale. 
Those published by the Institution are sent to every 
great library and to every scientific body in the world ; 
and those bodies^ in return, send back all their publica- 
tions. Thus, already, a most valuable library has been 
collected, containing books hardly to be found collected 
together anywhere else in the United States. 

Thirty years ago, the merely nominal sum of $1,000 
was, at the instance of -the Commissioner of Patents, 
Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, devoted by Congress for the pur- 
poses of Agriculture. For two years before, this patri- 



THE INSTITUTION GAKDENS. 545 

otic gentleman had been distributing seeds and plants 
gratuitously, and for nine years, during his entire term 
of office, he continued his good work. His successors in 
the Patent-Office kept up the practice ; but it was not 
until 1862 that the Department of Agriculture was for- 
mally organized. ' 

It now nominally belongs to the Department of the 
Interior, but in every essential is a distinct department 
in itself. 

The beautiful building built expressly for it, and dedi- 
cated exclusively to its uses, terminates one of the finest 
vistas running out from Pennsylvania avenue. It stands 
within the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution, sur- 
rounded by spacious conservatories and wide blooming 
gardens — every plant and tree indigenous to our coun- 
try — from the luxuriant tropical vegetation of the South- 
ern States, to the dwarfed and hardy foliage of our north- 
ern borders, may be found in its grounds. A division is 
devoted to horticulture, and the propagation and accli- 
matization of new and foreign species. Studies in orna- 
mentation, in the best means of hybridizing, budding, 
pruning and grafting, in treating diseases of plants and 
trees, are thoroughly pursued in the experimental gar- 
dens. Seeds of new varieties and of superior quality, as 
soon as they are obtained, are freely distributed through- 
out the country, on application to the Commissioner of 
Agriculture. 

The Department maintains, at least, one correspondent 
in every county of the United States, through whom 
statistics of quality and quantity of crops, and other 
facts, are forwarded to Washington, to be there distrib- 
uted by means of the monthly and yearly reports. Spe- 
35 



546 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

cialists are also employed to prepare for these reports 
instructive articles on suitable topics. Questions from 
agriculturalists are freely answered and the fullest possi- 
ble information afforded. The purchaser of a farm situ- 
ated in a region with which he is unacquainted, has only 
to inquire, and the department will tell him the crops 
likely to prove remunerative in the special locality, ad- 
vise him regarding cultivation, and warn him of obstacles 
to be surmounted, and the best means of overcoming 
them. A chemist will analyze the soil, report as to its 
properties and the value of fertilizers to be used thereon ; 
a botanist will give every particular regarding the na- 
tures and diseases of plants, and will point out in what 
families to seek needed products, and what effect a change 
of soil will have upon them. An entomologist will give 
advice regarding the insects which destroy vegetation, 
and as to the best mode for their extermination. 

As compared with the other national bureaux, the ex- 
pense of this department is remarkably small. The cost 
of the library and museum was $140,000, and the con- 
servatories were built at an expense of but $52,000 
more. The library contains a valuable collection of ag- 
ricultural literature in several languages. Volumes of 
rare pictures are arranged on long tables ; one work, a 
present from Francis Joseph I., Emperor of Austria, en- 
titled "Nature-Printing," containing representations of 
ferns so exquisitely printed that it is difficult to believe 
them unreal. 

In the museum are specimens of fibrous products, cereals 
of this and other countries, stuffed birds and plaster-casts 
of fruits from all the different sections of the United 
States, arranged so as to show at a glance the products 



THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM. 547 

of each region and the specific changes caused by trans- 
portation. On the walls of the fruit-cabinet are hung 
diagrams showing the character and habits of the different 
insects that prey upon fruit and fruit trees ; and in glass 
cases are preserved the native birds that feed upon de- 
structive insects, and should be protected by the kind 
treatment of the agriculturalist. 

The halls of this beautiful building are laid with im- 
ported tiles, its ceilings are exquisitely frescoed, and 
many of its walls hung with wood-paper in rich blending 
tints. The museum filling the main hall of the second 
floor is furnished with lofty, air-tight walnut cases. 

The great California plank which once stood in one of 
the underground halls of the Patent-Office, has been 
wrought into a massive table which stands in the Mu- 
seum. It is seven feet by twelve, and looks like a bill- 
iard-table without the cloth, and is finely polished. The 
legs and frame are made of Florida cedar. The top of 
the table is composed of the plank ; it looks like solid 
mahogany without knot or blemish. Much attention 
has been given to the cultivation of the fibrous grasses 
which, in China, are woven into fine and durable cloth. 
Specimens of these grasses, and of the cloth which they 
make, in its various stages of manufacture, are on exhi- 
bition in the cases of the museum. A number of acres 
have been set apart in the grounds for the cultivation of 
these grasses. The shade- trees of our entire country are 
to be represented in these grounds. Already over one 
thousand four hundred native varieties have been planted. 

Through the Smithsonian Institute the Department has 
been put into communication with leading foreign agri- 
cultural societies, and the result has been, not only an 



548 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

exchange of reports, but of almost every known specimen 
of flower-seeds, seeds of shrubs, vegetables and fruits. 
The display of flowers in the agricultural grounds is 
already something wonderful, and soon will equal any like 
display in the world. 



CHAPTER XLVni. 

OLD HOMES AND HAUNTS OF WASHINGTON. 

The Oldest Home in Washington — The Cottage of David Burns — David 
Burns's Daughter — Singing a Lady's Praises — The Attractions of a Cot- 
tage — " Tom Moore " the Poet Pays Homage to Fair Marcia — The Fa- 
vored Suitor — How the Lady was Wooed and Won — Mother and Daugh- 
ter—The Offering to God— The City Orphan Asylum— A Costly Mauso- 
leum — The Assassination Conspiracy — Persecuting the Innocent — A Sug- 
gestion for the Board of Works — The Octagon House — A Comfortable 
Income — The Pleasures of Property — A Haunted House — Apple -Stealing 
— " Departed Joys and Stomach- Aches " — The Jackson Monument — The 
Tragedy of the Decatur House — A Fatal Duel — The Stockton- Sickles 
House — A Spot of Frightful Interest — The Club-House — Assassination 
of Mr. Seward — Scenes of Festivity — The Madison House — Mrs. Madi- 
son's Popularity — Her Turbans and Her Snuff— The Exploit of Commo- 
dore Welkes — Arlington Hotel — The House of Charles Sumner — Corco- 
ran Castle — The Finest Picture- Gallery in America — Powers' Greek 
Slave — "Maggie Beck" — Kalaroma — During the War — Bock Creek — 
The Romantic Story of Mr. Barlow's Niece — Francis P. Blair — Doddington 
House — The Brother of Lord Ellenborough — Forgetting His Own Name 
— Locking Up a Wife — The " Ten Buildings " — The Retreat of Louis 
Phillippe — Old Capitol Prison — The Temporary Capitol — The Deeds of 
Ann Royal and Sally Brass — " Paul Pry " — Blackmailing — Feared by all 
Mankind — An Unpleasant Sort of Woman — Arrested on Suspicion — A 
Small American Bastile — Where Wirz was Hung. 

THE oldest home in "Washington is the cottage of Da- 
vid Burns. 
You remember him, he was Washington's " obstinate 
Mr. Burns." Well, he owned nearly the entire site of 
the future Federal city, an estate which had descended 



550 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

to him, through several generations of Scottish ancestors. 
It was perfectly human and right that he should make 
the most and best of his precious paternal acres. Long 
before quarrelling Congresses had even thought of the 
District of Columbia as a site to contend over as the fu- 
ture Capitol, the cottage of David Burns had gathered 
on its lowly roof the moss of time. 

After the lapse of nearly a century it stands to-day as 
it stood then, only the moss on its roof is deeper, and the 
trees which arch above it, cast a longer and deeper 
shadow. It was a mansion in that day of small begin- 
nings. Yet it is but a low, sharp-roofed cottage, one 
story high, with a garret; its doors facing north and 
south, one opening upon the river, with no steps, but one 
broad flag-stone, now settled deep within its grassy bor- 
ders. Besides the garret, there cannot be more than four 
rooms in the house; a dining-room, sitting-room, and two 
sleeping-rooms ; the kitchen, after the Maryland and Vir- 
ginia fashion of the present day, was probably a detached 
building. The farm-house no doubt equalled its average 
neighbors, scattered miles apart across the wide domain 
of open country. 

Before Washing-ton came to negotiate for the future 
site of the Federal city, the society of Davy Burns was 
probably composed of plain farmer folk like himself. It 
was at a later time, when the farmer was transformed 
into a millionaire, and his only daughter had grown into 
the fairest belle and richest heiress in all the country 
round, that the long, low rooms of the one-story farm- 
house were filled with the most illustrious men of their 
generation. 

At the time of the sale of his estate to President Wash- 



OLD HOMES AND HAUNTS. 551 

ington, David Burns' only daughter was not more than 
twelve or thirteen years of age. 

With a prescience of her future lot, he proceeded to 
give her every advantage of education and society at 
that period accessible to a gentlewoman of fortune. The 
Hector of St. John's Church, who preached her funeral 
sermon in 1832, said: "She was placed by her parents 
in the family of Luther Martin, Esq., of Baltimore, who 
was then at the height of his fame as the most distin- 
guished jurist and advocate in the State of Maryland, 
and with his daughters and family she had the best op- 
portunity of education and society." 

At eighteen, Marcia Burns returned to the home of 
her parents — the lowly farm-house on the banks of the 
Potomac. Then, and at a later day, when the flush and 
enchantment of youth had fled, the vision of Marcia 
Burns is altogether lovely. Beside the attractions of 
fortune, she seemed to possess in an eminent degree the 
highest qualities of the feminine nature. It was of 
Marcia Burns that Horatio Greenough wrote : 

" ' Mid rank and wealth and worldly pride, 
From every snare she turned aside. 

She sought the low, the humble shed, 
Where gaunt disease and famine tread ; 
And from that time, in youthful pride, 
She stood Van Ness's blooming bride, 
No day her blameless head o'erpast, 
But saw her dearer than the last." 

The return of the only child and heiress of David 
Burns, in the first beauty of young womanhood, soon 



552 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

filled the paternal cottage with illustrious society, and 
with many suitors for her hand and heart. The Keys, 
the Lloyds, the Peters, the Lows, the Tayloes, the Calverts, 
the Carrols, all visited here. Washington, Jefferson, Hamil- 
ton, Burr, with many other famous then, not forgotten now, 
were guests at the Burns cottage. Thomas Moore was 
entertained beneath its roof, and slept in one of the little 
rooms " off" the large one on the ground floor. 

The favored suitor was John P. Van Ness, the son of 
Judge Peter Van Ness of New York, celebrated as an 
anti-Federalist, a Revolutionary officer, and a supporter 
of Aaron Burr against the Clinton and Livingston feud. 

When John Van Ness wooed and won Marcia Burns, 
he was thirty years of age, a Member of Congress from 
New York, "well-fed, well-bred, well-read," elegant, pop- 
ular and handsome enough to win his way to any maid- 
en's heart, unassisted by the accessories of fortune, which, 
in addition, were bountifully his. In Gilbert Stuart's pic- 
ture we see him with powdered wig and toupee, light-brown 
hair and side whiskers, perceptive forehead, aquiline nose, 
finely-curved lips and chin, a small mouth, with clear, hazel 
eyes, which could look their way straight^ to many hearts. 

The portrait of the heiress of ^^^£- Burns may be 
seen to-day in Washington, not in any hall of wealth or 
fashion, but in the Orphan Asylum, which she founded 
and endowed, to whose children she was a mother. It 
looks down upon us, a Madonna face, with intellectual, 
spiritual brow, dewy eyes, and a tender mouth. 

Marcia Burns married John P. Van Ness at the age of 
twenty. Her only brother dying in early youth, she in- 
herited the whole of her father's vast estate. For a few 
years after her marriage she lived at the old cottage. 



THE HOUSE OF MARCIA BURKS. 553 

Her husband then built a two-story house on the corner 
of Twelfth and D streets. Later, he began the house, 
which, still standing in the centre of Mansion Square, is one 
of the most unique of all the historic houses of Washing- 
ton. It was designed, as were so many famous Wash- 
ington houses, by Latrobe, and cost between $50,000 and 
$60,000 more than half a century ago. Its marble man- 
tel-pieces, wrought in Italy, with their sculptured Loves 
and Vestas, still remain, models of exquisite art. It is 
finished with costly woods, and about its door-knobs are 
set tiles inlaid with Mosaics. Its great portico, facing 
north, is modelled after that of the President's house. 
This stately brick mansion, amid the trees, standing a 
few rods back from the Burns' cottage, presents to it an 
absolute contrast. 

This costly home was ready for the family when the 
only daughter and child of General and Mrs. Van Ness 
returned, in 1820, from school in Philadelphia. Thither 
Marcia Burns brought her daughter. The bond between 
the two is said to have been more intimate and profound 
than that of simply mother and daughter. The daugh- 
ter was the cherished companion of the mother, who 
cultivated an intelligent interest in public affairs, who 
loved poetry, and wrote it, and who, amid all the pomp 
of wealth and state, never forgot, or allowed her child to 
forget, that the fashion of this world passeth away. 

Ann Elbertina Van Ness married Arthur Middleton of 
South Carolina, son of a signer of the Declaration of 
Independence. But, in November, 1822, in less than 
two years from her return from school, this only child, 
this youthful bride, this heiress of untold wealth, with 
her babe in her arms, was carried to the grave. 



554 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

From that hour, her mother, Marcia Burns, who, in the 
world, had never been of it, renounced its vanities en- 
tirely. The cottage in which she was born, in which her 
parents lived and died, nestling under the patriarchal 
trees, just outside the windows of her stately home, had 
ever remained the object of her veneration and affection. 
In this humble dwelling, over whose venerable roof 
waved the branches of trees planted by her dear parents, 
she selected a secluded apartment, with appropriate ar- 
rangements for solemn meditation, to which she often 
retired, and spent hours in quiet solitude and holy 
communion. 

The offering to God which she made beside the grave 
of her daughter, was the City Orphan Asylum of Wash- 
ington. She became a mother to the children, saved, 
sheltered, and trained for heaven beneath its roof. She 
did not wait for these orphans to come to her door. 
Night and day she sought them out. In her portrait, 
still hanging in this asylum, she is sitting with three little 
girls, clinging to her for protection, one with its head in 
her lap. 

Her last sickness was long and painful. A few days 
before her death, with a few Christian friends gathered 
about her bed, she celebrated the holy Sacrament ; then, 
with perfect serenity, awaited the final call. Her last 
words to her husband, placing her hand upon his head, 
were : " Heaven bless and protect you. Never mind me." 
She died September 9, 1832, aged fifty years. 

She was the first American woman buried with public 
honors. At the time of her death, General Van Ness was 
Mayor of Washington. Meetings of condolence were held 
by' citizens in different places. As the funeral procession 



A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM. 555 

began to move, a committee of citizens placed a second 
silver plate upon her coffin, inscribed : — 

" The Citizens of Washington, in testimony of their veneration 
for departed worth, dedicate this plate to the memory of Marcia 
Van Ness, the excellent consort of D. P. Van Ness. If piety, 
charity, high principle and exalted worth could have averted 
the shafts of fate, she would still have remained among us, a 
bright example of every virtue. The hand of death has removed 
her to a purer and happier state of existence ; and, while we 
lament her loss, let us endeavor to emulate her virtues." 

The procession passed between the little girls of the 
Orphan Asylum, who stood in lines, till the coffin was 
placed at the door of the vault, when they came forward, 
strewing the bier with branches of weeping-willows, and 
singing a farewell hymn. 

The last earthly house which received the- body of 
Marcia Burns was more magnificent than any she had 
ever inhabited. Years before, General Van Ness had 
reared a Mausoleum, which still remains, one of the pur- 
est examples of monumental art on this continent. It is 
a copy of the Temple of Vesta, and could not be built at 
the present time for a sum less than thirty-four or thirty- 
five thousand dollars. In the vault, beneath its open 
dome, Marcia Burns was laid beside her child. This mag- 
nificent temple of the dead was recently removed and 
rebuilt, precisely as it was in the Oak Hill Cemetery, 
Georgetown. The cells of its deep vault now hold nearly 
all of the dust left of the Burns and Van Ness alliance. 

General Van Ness lived to the period of the Mexican 
war, passing away at the age of seventy-six, after having 
enjoyed every honor which the citizens of Washington 



556 TEN" TEARS IN" WASHINGTON. 

could bestow upon him. He sued the Government of the 
United States for violating its contract with the original 
proprietors of Washington in selling to private purchasers 
lots near the Mall. Robert B. Taney was his lawyer, and 
yet he lost his suit. He gave an entertainment to Con- 
gress every year up to the time of his death, and wonder- 
heads declare that his six horses, headless, still gallop 
around the Van Ness Mansion, in Mansion square, annu- 
ally, on the anniversary of that event. 

Some twenty-five years ago, this old mansion and estate 
was bought by its present proprietor, Thomas Green, Esq., 
a Virginia gentleman. The last time that it came prom- 
inently before the public, was during the assassination con- 
spiracy, when an irresponsible newspaper sent the report 
flying, that its great wine-vault was to have been used as 
a place of incarceration for Mr. Lincoln, before he was 
conveyed across the river. In those mad days no mag- 
nate waited for proof, and the result was that Mr. Green 
and his gentle wife, who, — as her husband remarked — 
" was as innocent as an angel," were shut up in our small 
bastile, the old Capital prison. Here both were held for 
more than thirty days, when after having vindicated their 
honor beyond the possibility of reproach, the Govern- 
ment somewhat ashamed of itself, let them depart to the 
shelter of their patriarchal home. 

On buying the estate, Mr. Green with that veneration 
for old, sacred associations which pre-eminently marks 
the Virginian, — instead of tearing down the old Burns' 
cottage as " nothing to him " or as a blot upon his fair 
estate, went immediately to work to preserve it. With- 
out changing it in any way, he re-roofed it, made it rain- 
proof, whitewashed it, and left it with its trees and mem- 



THE OLD COTTAGE OF DAVID BURNS. 557 

ories. What Mr. Green has preserved, let not the Board 
of Public Works destroy! In this case, gentlemen, let 
your "grade" go — and the cottage of "the obstinate Mr. 
Burns," the first owner of this great Capital, and the old- 
est house in it — remain. 

It was a June evening that we last passed the gate and 
the lodge of the old Van Ness estate, at the foot of Sev- 
enteenth street. The high brick-wall which shut in this 
historic garden, is mantled with ivy and honeysuckle. 
Old fruit trees, apple, pear, peach, apricot, plum, cherry, 
nectarine, and fig trees, all in their season, lift their 
crowns of fruitage to the sun within these old walls. 
Following a winding avenue, we pass through grounds 
above which gigantic aspen, maple, walnut, holly, and 
yew trees cast deep, cool shadows in the hottest summer 
days. As we approach the house we see that the drive be- 
fore the northern portico is encircled with an immense 
growth of box. Before the low windows of the eastern 
drawing-room, stretch wide parterres of roses of every 
known variety. In June it is literally a garden of roses — 
and the early snow falls upon them, budding and blooming 
still in the delicious air. Oranges ripen on the sunshiny 
lawn which surrounds the house, and masses of honey- 
suckle which climb the balustrades of the southern portico 
pervade the air with sweetness, acres away. 

This southern portico used as a conservatory in the 
winter, is a counterpart, on a smaller plan, of the south 
veranda of the President's house. It has the same out- 
look only nearer the river. To the right, the dome of 
the observatory swells into the blue air, and, before it, the 
Potomac runs up and kisses the grasses at its feet. Lov- 
ers' walk, shaded by murmuring pines, as such a walk 



558 TEN YEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

should be, runs on through the grove down to a mimic 
lake, there, in mid-water, is a tiny island with shadowy 
trees and restful seats. 

I stray down this walk with Alice, — golden-haired and 
poet-eyed. We wander across under the patriarchal 
trees and come out on the river-side of the old Burns' 
cottage. Its sunken door-stone, its antique door-latch, 
its minute window-panes, all are just the same as when 
Marcia Burns, beautiful and young, received within its 
walls her courtly worshippers; just the same as when 
Marcia Burns, smitten and childless, knelt alone by its 
desolate hearth, to commune with the God and Father 
of her spirit, and to dedicate herself to His service for 
ever. 

Beside us, eight lofty Kentucky coffee-trees soar palm- 
like towards the sky. Through their clustering crowns 
the full moon peers down upon us ; upon the cottage, so 
fraught with the memories of buried generations ; upon 
the white walls of the mansion, so rich in recollections of 
the illustrious dead of a later past, — and she transfig- 
ures both cottage and hall in her hallowing radiance, as, 
with lingering steps, I say to gentle host and hostess, and 
to Alice, — golden-haired and poet-eyed, — " Farewell." 

The Octagon House, now used as an office by the Navy 
Department, stands on the corner of Eighteenth street 
and New York avenue. It was built near the close of 
the last century by Colonel John Tayloe, one of the most 
famous men of his time, and is still owned by his descend- 
ents. Colonel Tayloe was a friend of Washington, who 
persuaded him to invest some of his immense fortune in 
the new Federal city. He was educated at Cambridge, 



A HAUNTED HOUSE. 559 

England, and during his life in Washington, four of his 
former class-mates were sent as Ministers to the United 
States. 

Colonel Tayloe had an income of seventy-five thousand 
dollars a year. He had an immense country estate at 
Mount Airy, Virginia, and both there and in Octagon 
House, entertained his friends in princely state. He kept 
race-horses, and expended about thirty-three thousand 
dollars every year in new purchases. He owned five 
hundred slaves, built brigs and schooners, worked iron- 
mines, converted the iron into ploughshares, — and all was 
done by the hands of his own subjects. After the burning 
of the White House, Mr. and Mrs. Madison lived in the 
Octagon House for a year, and held these elegant draw- 
ing-rooms and gave costly dinners. The Octagon House 
has long had the reputation of being haunted. " It is an 
authenticated fact, that every night, at the same hour, all 
the bells would ring at once. One gentleman, dining 
with Colonel Tayloe, when this mysterious ringing began, 
being an unbeliever in mysteries, and a very powerful 
man, jumped up and caught the bell wires in his hand, 
but only to be lifted bodily from the floor, while he was 
unsuccessful in stopping the ringing. Some declare that 
it was discovered, after a time, that rats were the ghosts 
who rung the bells ; others, that the cause was never dis- 
covered, and that finally the family, to secure peace, were 
compelled to take the bells down and hang them in dif- 
ferent fashion. Among other remedies, had been previ- 
ously tried that of exorcism, but the prayers of the priest 
who was summoned availed nought." 

In 1805, Washington city was an old field, covered 
everywhere with green grass and many original trees of 



560 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

the forest. There were no streets made. The President's 
house was unfinished, and Lafayette square, opposite, was 
still called the " Burns' Orchard." One corner of it was 
used as a burial-ground of St. John's Church. Where 
General Jackson's statue is now rearing in the air on a 
frantic horse, then stood a clump of cherry trees, under 
which John Gardner's school-boys used to make them- 
selves sick eating green cherries. As the boys of this 
school never allowed the green apples or any other fruit 
in this orchard to ripen, and for that reason were in a 
perpetually griped condition all summer, their school- 
master, much against their wishes, and that of the militia 
who paraded under the trees, obtained permission of Pres- 
ident Jefferson to cut the orchard down. 

As an open "reservation," the square was long a land- 
mark of the departed joys and stomachaches of the boys 
of a former generation. In course of time Dowing laid 
out the graceful walks and grassy plats which make it 
now a perfect bijou of beauty. He planted the trees 
which to-day arch high in mid-air, and spread so deep 
and grateful a shade above the weary multitudes who 
seek rest and a touch of nature's healing upon its way- 
side seats. It is altogether beautiful and soul and sense- 
reviving, in the spring, when its many-flowering shrubs 
pervade the air with fragrance, and no less delicious in the 
autumn, when it flames a mosaic of gorgeous landscape 
set in the dusty square, its many tinted leaves warm and 
red as gems raining about your feet. 

August 11, 1848, a resolution of Congress authorized 
the Jackson Monument Committee to receive the brass 
guns captured by Jackson at Pensacola, to be used as 
material for the construction of a monument to that dis- 



A school-boy's pakadise. 561 

tinguished patriot. Clark Mills was appointed to execute 
the statue. President Fillmore chose its site in the centre 
of the square, opposite the President's House, where it was 
inaugurated January 8, 1853, the anniversary of Jackson's 
victory at New Orleans, in 1815. As I am inadequate to 
describe such a work of art, I give the guide-book de- 
scription : — 

" General Jackson is represented in the exact military costume 
worn by him, with cocked-hat in hand, saluting his troops. The 
charger, a noble specimen of the animal, with all the fire and 
spirit of a Bucephalus, is in a rearing posture, poised upon his 
hind feet, with no other stay than the balance of gravity, and 
the bolts pinning the feet to the pedestal. The work is colossal, 
the figure of Jackson being eight feet in height, and that of the 
horse in proportion. The whole stands upon a pj^ramidal pedes- 
tal of white marble, seven feet in height, at the base of which 
are planted four brass six-pound guns, taken by the hero at New 
Orleans. The cost of the statue to the Government, including 
the pedestal and iron railing, was 828,500." 

Around this peaceful spot, where the militia beat their 
reveille, and the school-boys munched green apples and 
cherries, and gathered nuts in days of yore, human 
life in all its passion of pleasure, tragedy and pain, now 
pressed close. One of the saddest tragedies of the 
square is associated with the Decatur House. It is said 
that three powers rule the world — Intellect, Wealth, and 
Fame. Wearing this triple crown, Stephen Decatur came 
home to the wife whom he worshipped, saying : " I have 
gained a small sprig of laurel, which I hasten to lay at 
your feet." He bought the lot on the corner of Six- 
teenth and H streets, and employed Latrobe to design a 
commodious and elegant mansion. In this house the 

36 



562 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

home-life of Decatur begun with the most dazzling aug- 
uries. Its walls were hung with the trophies of his 
glory : the sword presented by Congress for burning the 
Philadelphia ; another from Congress for the attack on 
Tripoli ; a medal from Congress for the capture of the 
Macedonian; a box containing the freedom of New York ; 
the medal of the Order of Cincinnati ; swords from the 
States of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the City of 
Philadelphia; and services of plate from the cities of 
Baltimore and Philadelphia. All these were but leaves 
on the sprig of laurel which he laid at the feet of the 
beloved one. 

Mrs. Decatur was accomplished, intellectual, and pas- 
sionately devoted to her heroic husband. Not yet forty-two 
years of age, he had scaled the very summit of fame, and 
already rested after the toilsome ascent. His mornings 
were given to the fulfilment of his duties as Navy Com- 
missioner, and his leisure was spent with the best in the 
society of Washington, made up of the highest in the 
land for station, character, and intelligence. 

The salon of Mrs. Decatur, which, to-day, is larger 
than can be found in any other private house in Wash- 
ington, was a focal point for all that was dazzling in the 
social life of the capital. There are those still living 
who remember the brilliant assembly gathered here only 
the night before his death. Mrs. Decatur, who had no 
prescience of the anguish awaiting her, at the request of 
friends, played on the harp, on which she was a skilful 
performer. Commodore Decatur, conscious of the por- 
tentous appointment which awaited him the coming morn- 
ing, abated not one jot of the wonted charm of his manner, 
staying in the parlors till the last guest had gone. 



THE DECATUR TRAGEDY. 563 

At dawn of the next day he arose, left the sleeping 
wife and household, crossed Lafayette Square, walked to 
Beale's Tavern, near the Capitol, breakfasted, proceeded 
to Bladensburg, where the duel was fought at nine o'clock. 
Mortally wounded, he was brought back to his happy 
home, where he died the night of the same day. He 
tried to avert the duel, saying to Commodore Barron : 
" I have not challenged you, nor do I intend to challenge 
you ; your life depends on yourself." 

He was followed to the grave by the President of the 
United States and the most illustrious men of his time. 
" The same cannon which had so often announced the 
splendid achievements of Decatur now marked the pe- 
riods in bearing him to the tomb. Their reverberating 
thunder mournfully echoed through the metropolis, and 
also vibrated through a heart tortured to agony." A 
vast concourse of citizens, marching to a funeral dirge, 
followed the dead hero to Kalorama. 

Mrs. Decatur, within the walls of her home, for three 
years shut herself away from all the world. Afterwards 
the Decatur house was rented to Edward Livingston, 
then Secretary-of-State. Here Cora Livingston was mar- 
ried to Dr. Barton, who is remembered not only as a 
diplomat, but as the editor of an extensive and valuable 
collection of Shakespeare's works. Here Sir Charles 
Vaughan, the British Ambassador, lived, and by his wit 
and affable manners and hospitality, made the house 
again a centre of elegant society. Martin Van Buren, 
while Secretary-of-State, occupied the Decatur House. 
The brothers King, both Members of Congress from New 
York, lived here. One was the father of the much-ad- 
mired Mrs. Bancroft Davis, a portion of whose girlhood 



564 TEN YEARS IN" WASHINGTON. 

was passed under its roof. Mr. Orr, while Speaker of 
the House, was its tenant, and dispensed hospitalities to 
thousands in its grand salon. From Madison to Grant, 
every President has been entertained within its walls. 

Madame de Stael says : " The homes and haunts of 
the great ever bear impress of their individuality." 
Jean Paul Eichter declares : " No thought is lost." If 
this be true, how affluent of eloquence, wit and mirth 
these historic halls must be ! They are ready to re- 
vive more than the splendor of past days. For a num- 
ber of years the house, rented to the Government, has 
been used for offices. But withjn twelve months it has 
been purchased by General Edward Fitzgerald Beale, 
who has rehabilitated it, without remodelling it, for his 
own family residence. The ample halls and grand sa- 
lon remain unchanged in proportions, while fresh frescoes, 
historic devices, French windows and marble vestibule, 
give to the antique mansion the aspect of modern ele- 
gance . 

General Beale is the grandson of Commodore Thomas 
TruxtOn, one of the first six captains appointed by Gen- 
eral Washington in the early navy to guard the com- 
merce of the United States. Commodore Decatur was a 
favorite midshipman and lieutenant under Trnxton ; and 
the grandson of his early commander, in this home of 
Decatur's heart, is now preserving every possible souve- 
nir of the sea. The Decatur mansion has passed into 
fitting hands. Its present owner made his gallant record 
under Commodore Stockton, and, in imperilling his life 
for others, has maintained the illustrious escutcheon 
transmitted him by his ancestors. When the gay season 
begins, light and music, warmth and cheer, wisdom, 



THE STOCKTON-SICKLES HOUSE. 565 

beauty and grace will again make these old halls glad. 
" Memnon-like, the old walls will again give forth sweet 
sounds." A new generation will repeat the festivities of 
the generation gone to dust. 

A few rods further on we came to the famous Stockton- 
Sickles House. Just now it shrinks, shabby and small, be- 
low its lofty modern neighbors. It is a white stuccoed 
house, two stories, with basement and attic, with high 
steps and square central hall, after the fashion of old 
times. It was called the Stockton House because Purser 
Stockton, who married a relative of Commodore Decatur, 
owned and lived in it. Afterwards, it was occupied by 
Levi "Woodbury, the father of Mrs. Montgomery Blair, 
who lived here both while Secretary of the Treasury and 
of the Navy. It was also rented by Mr. Southard, of 
Georgia, the father of Mrs. Ogden Hoffman. When Mr. 
and Mrs. Sickles lived in it, it is said that the trees in 
Lafayette square were so small that the waving of a hand- 
kerchief from one of the windows could be distinctly seen 
at the club house opposite, on the other side of the 
square. This was the signal used between the first be- 
trayed, then tempted and ruined wife, and the man of 
the world, to whom seduction was at once a pastime and 
a profession. 

The trunk of the tree against which Key fell when 
shot by Sickles, may still be seen near the corner of Mad- 
ison place and Pennsylvania avenue. 

A few steps further on, in the middle of the block, 
stands the famous club-house which has witnessed more 
of the vicissitudes and tragedy of human life than any 
other house on the square, excepting, perhaps, the White 
House. The Club-House is a large, square, three-storied 



/ 



566 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

red brick house, built for his own use by Commodore 
Kogers, Of the Navy. After his death, it became a fash- 
ionable boarding-house, then a club-house. To one of 
its rooms Barton Key was borne after being wounded by 
Sickles. While Secretary-of-State, Mr. Seward occupied 
the house for eight years, and during that time it was the 
centre of most elegant hospitality. In the assassination 
of Mr. Seward, it witnessed its crowning tragedy. In its 
rooms Mr. Seward and his son languished for months, 
while slowly recovering from the almost death-blows 
dealt by Payne. 

After their recovery, the lovely and only daughter of 
Mr. Seward here slowly faded from earth. This young 
lady was, in a very remarkable degree, the chosen com- 
panion and confidante of her father. She not only sym- 
pathized profoundly in his pursuits, she shared them with 
him. I believe she witnessed, with unavailing cries, the 
attempted assassination of her father. At least, she 
never recovered from the shock received at that time. 
With her, passed from earth one of the loveliest spirits 
which ever shed its pure light upon the social life of the 
Capital. Her death left Mr. Seward wifeless and daugh- 
terless. With everything to live for, she met death with 
perfect faith and resignation. Her beautiful life, with 
her triumphant passage through death to a life still more 
perfect, remained with him to his last moment the most 
precious memory of her illustrious father. 

With all its burden of tragedy and pathetic death, 
with the departure of the Sewards, the old house did not 
take on the shadow of gloom. Its parlors never witnessed 
gayer or more crowded assemblies than thronged them 
the next winter, when occupied by General Belknap, the 



THE CLUB-HOUSE. 567 

Secretary-of-War. This was but for a single season. 
Another winter dropped its earliest snows on the new- 
made grave of the young wife and mother, the memory 
of whose gentle face and graceful presence and tender 
spirit, will only fade from the Capital with the present 
generation. It was the last naming up of festivity in 
the old house. It has never been gay since Mrs. Belknap 
died. 

The next year it waned into a boarding-house. Even 
that was not successful. People of sensibility do not 
wish even to board in a house so haunted with tragic 
memories of human lives. The house is now used for 
Government purposes. Its site is so superlative ; central 
to the most interesting objects of Washington, and facing 
the waving sea of summer-green in Lafayette square. 
In the march of change its place will soon be filled by 
some soaring Mansard mansion of the future. But when 
every brick has vanished, the memories of the old club- 
house and Seward mansion will survive while any chron- 
icle of Washington endures. 

Next to it stands the house of Mr. Benjamin Ogle 
Tayloe, a descendant of Mr. Tayloe, of Octagon House 
memory. Mr. and Mrs. Tayloe have occupied this stately 
house for many years. The reminiscences of Washington 
published by Mr. Tayloe for private circulation are 
among the most entertaining records ever written of the 
Capital. 

Next to the Tayloe House, on the corner of Fifteenth 
and H street, stands the Madison House, in which, as a 
widow, Mrs. Madison so long held her court. No eminent 
man retired from service of the state ever had more pub- 
lic recognition and honor bestowed upon him by the 

I 



568 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Government he had served than did this popular and 
ever-beloved woman. On New Year's day, after paying 
their respects to the President, all the high officers of the 
Government always adjourned to the house of Mrs. Mad- 
ison, to pay their respects to her. In her drawing-room 
political foes met on equal ground, and for the time, pub- 
lic and private animosities were forgotten or ignored. 

"Never" says "Uncle Paul" her colored servant, who 
had lived with her from boyhood, and who still lives, 
"never was a more gracefuller lady in a drawing-room. 
We always had our Wednesday-evening receptions in the 
old Madison House, and we had them in style." Mrs.. 
Madison's turbans are as famous in Washington to-day 
as her snuff box. It is said that she expended $1,000 a 
year in turbans. She wore one as long as she lived — long 
after it had ceased to be fashionable. " These turbans were 
made of the finest materials and trimmed to match her 
various dresses." Uncle Paul tells of one of her dresses 
of purple velvet with a long train trimmed with wide 
gold-lace with which she wore a turban trimmed with 
gold-lace and a pair of gold shoes. With a white satin 
dress, she wore a turban spangled with silver, and silver 
shoes." She sent to Paris for all her grand costumes. 
Her tea-parties and her "loo" parties are still dwelt 
upon with loving accents by her admiring contemporaries 
who still linger on the borders of a later generation. 

After the death of Mrs. Madison, her house was pur- 
chased and occupied for many years by Commodore 
Welkes, who captured Mason and Slid ell. It still stands 
in perfect preservation and is rented year by year to 
chance tenants. Two years ago, it was occupied by the 
Secretary-of-War and its drawing-rooms again thronged 
with brilliant crowds. 



CORCORAN CASTLE. 569 

On an opposite corner facing Vermont avenue we see 
the brown walls, floating flag and gay equipages of Ar- 
lington Hotel. Beside it, on the corner, is the red-brick 
house with white shades, and Mansard roof, where, amid 
rare pictures, books, works of art, and choice friends, 
lives Charles Sumner. 

A few rods farther on, on the corner of H and Six- 
teenth streets, facing Lafayette square and peering out 
toward the old Decatur mansion, we came to " Corcoran 
Castle." It is an imposing house, built of red-brick with 
brown facings, divided from the street by an iron railing, 
painted green, tipped with gilt, with an immense garden 
at the back, covering an entire square. The house is now 
owned and has been greatly beautified by W. W. Corco- 
ran, the famous Washington banker, but has had many 
other occupants. It was once owned by Daniel Webster 
to whom it was presented by leaders of the party whom 
he had served. Great astonishment was expressed when 
he afterwards sold it. But as Daniel Webster was ever 
an impecunious man, he probably was compelled to part 
with his palace as Sheridan was so often compelled to part 
with his. 

Before and during the Mexican war, the British Minis- 
ter, Mr. Pa^kingham resided in it, kept open house and 
made his parlors the rendezvous of the young people. A 
lady tells "of the young officers she saw taking part in 
those brilliant life-pictures, who in a few short weeks 
were lying with rigid, upturned faces, on Mexican battle- 
fields." The house was at one time occupied by Gen- 
eral Gratios, whose daughter married Count Montholon. 
During the war, when Mr. Corcoran resided abroad, he 
gave his house in charge of the successive French Minis- 



570 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

ters. During that time Madame de Montholon came back 
to the former home of her father. Within, the house is 
a delight to the eyes. Its picture-gallery is one of the 
finest in America, and holds amid many other treasures 
of art, Powers' Greek Slave. The whole house is a gal- 
lery of costly furniture and works of art. 

In this home of grace, " Maggie Beck " a Kentucky 
helle of three seasons ago, who married a nephew of Mr. 
Corcoran, "received" her friends for the last time. The 
bride of a month, she was already the bride of death, 
and in her marriage robe, and veil and gleaming jewels, 
white, cold, and silent, she received the tears and lamen- 
tations poured upon her by agonized hearts. After an 
absence of years, hither Mr. Corcoran bore the dead 
body of his only child, and here, widowed and child- 
less, shut himself in alone with his dead. The children 
of this daughter now make music in these stately halls. 
Age and childhood make the family life of Corcoran 
Castle. 

A high brick wall shuts in this garden from the city. 
Its inner side is completely hung with ivy. Immense par- 
terres of roses and flowers of every tint, conservatories, 
a croquet-ground, rustic summer-houses, fountains, a fish- 
pond, forest trees shading a closely-shorn lawn, all these 
make a garden perfect in seclusion and beauty in the very 
heart of the Capital. 

One of the most famous of suburban Washington 
haunts is Kalorama, literally like Bellevue — "beautiful 
view T ." The ruins of Kalorama stand on a forest-shaded 
slope, a little more than a mile, perhaps, from the Presi- 
dent's house. From Twenty-first street it is approached 
by an avenue planted closely on either side by locust 



THE RUINS OF KALOEAMA. 571 

trees. Under their green arch the titled and famous of 
an earlier generation passed ; but in our own memory it 
is associated with the pestilence-laden ambulance, for 
during the war beautiful Kalorama was a small-pox hos- 
pital. 

Below Kalorama, Rock Creek winds its shining thread 
between the hills. Looking up the creek, we see grassy 
glades, along which cattle feed, and a picturesque valley 
walled by embowering woods. Climbing a green, tree- 
shaded slope, we reach a plateau from which we look 
down upon two cities, Rock Creek still winding its silvery 
thread between. Opposite is Analoston Island, beyond 
the Virginia shore, and Arlington House peering through 
the trees of its crowning hill. 

To the left lies Washington, guarded by the Capitol ; 
before us, crumbling amid its guardian oaks, the ruins of 
Kalorama. It was built by Joel Barlow, once of " Co- 
lumbiad" fame, in 1805. After spending several years 
abroad, where he espoused the cause of the French Re- 
public, he returned to his own country and built a castle 
for himself overlooking its Capital. Before this, his " Co- 
lumbiad " had been published with fine engravings, whose 
execution was superintended by Robert Fulton. On this 
poem he had spent the labor of the best years of his life. 
He believed without a doubt that it would be the national 
poem of the future. A copy of it graced every drawing- 
room. In what drawing-room is it visible now ! Alas ! 
for "Fame!" 

Joel Barlow and Robert Fulton were intimate friends. 
In 1810 Fulton visited Kalorama, and it is declared that 
some of his first ventures in navigation were launched 
upon Rock Creek. History records that Fulton tested his 



572 TEN TEAKS IN WASHINGTON. 

torpedoes during this visit to Washington, and persuaded 
Congress to consider his navigation schemes. Mr. Bar- 
low went to France as American Minister in 1812. He 
was taken ill while on his way to meet Napoleon, who 
had invited the American Minister to an interview with 
him at Wilna. Mr. Barlow died at Cracow, in Poland, 
where he solaced his death-bed by dictating a poem full 
of withering expression of resentment toward Napoleon 
for the hopes he had disappointed. 

Mr. Barlow bequeathed Kalorama to his niece Mrs. 
Bomford. A romantic story is told of this lady. While 
with her first husband (whose name has deservedly per- 
ished) on the frontier, he being an officer in the United 
States Army, she was captured by Indians. For some 
reason known only to himself, her husband did not take 
the trouble to pursue her ; but Lieutenant Bomford did. 
He organized a force of citizens and soldiers, and sallied 
forth in quest of the lady. He found her, and she re- 
warded him by marrying him after she had obtained a 
divorce from her indifferent lord. 

Colonel and Mrs. Bomford resided at Kalorama for 
many years. During their residence here the Decatur- 
Barron duel took place, and the body of Decatur 
found a temporary resting-place in the tomb of the Bar- 
lows. This vault is still visible at the top of a small hill 
near the main entrance to the Kalorama grounds. With 
its low sharp roof and its plastered walls, it looks like an 
old spring-house. It bears an inscription to the memory 
of Joel Barlow, " poet, patriot, and philosopher," although 
he was buried, when he died, at Cracow, Poland. 

When Mrs. Decatur left the Decatur mansion, she re- 
tired to Kalorama. And years after her husband's death 



THE MOTHER OF THE BLAIRS. 573 

she made it famous by the elegant entertainments which 
she gave there. There are gentlemen still in public life 
in Washington, who recall the elegant and costly dinners 
given by this lady at Kalorama. 

This beautiful historic spot is now owned by a family 
named Lovett, who, it is said, intend in time to rebuild it. 

Following Seventh street a mile or two beyond the 
city limits, we come to an unpretending country house, 
at some distance back from the road, surrounded by 
lawns, gardens and groves. It is a long, low house, be- 
fore which runs a piazza, and behind which bubbles a 
famous spring. If it is morning, a pair of saddle-horses 
stand waiting their riders before the door. Presently 
they come out together, an ancient knight and lady, 
ready for a ten-mile ride on horseback. Eighty years 
and more have set their seal on the brows of each. The 
gentleman's frame bears the marks of extreme age ; it is 
attenuated, yet shows few signs of decrepitude. His 
skin may look like parchment, but the eyes burn with 
unabated fires. The lady is tall, straight, and stately, 
with dark, keen eyes, and head erect, as befits the mother 
of the Blairs. She has a son more than sixty years of 
age, and yet she seems not to have lived so many years 
herself. More than fifty years ago, this couple, by wagons 
and on horseback, came through the woods from far Ken- 
tucky to seek their fortune in the new capital city. The 
struggling village has grown into a metropolis • sons and 
daughters to the fourth generation have blessed them ; 
they have done their share in the making and unmaking 
of presidents and men in power; they have received 
their full meed of honor as well as of blame ; their name 
has grown to fame; they have long outstripped the 



574 TEN YEAES IN WASHINGTON. 

allotted years of man, and here they are, ready for their 
eight or ten miles' horseback ride this morning. This is 
Francis P. Blair, Senior, and his wife, and this their 
country home. Honored among suburban Washington 
haunts is " Silver Spring." 

Almost any sunny day this ancient knight and lady, 
mounted on their two solid steeds, with a green bough in 
their hands in lieu of riding whips, she with a stately ca- 
lash upon her head, maybe seen jogging along Pennsyl- 
vania avenue toward the stately home of Montgomery 
Blair, which faces the War-Department. For more than 
two generations Mr. Blair has been a power in the land. 
He has had more or less to do with the making and un- 
making of every president since the days of Jackson. The 
Nestor of the Washington Press, he was a powerful sup- 
porter of "old Hickory," and to-day retains, undiminished, 
the living love now bestowed upon the friend so long 
buried in the past. Mr. Blair, leaning on his long staff, 
may often be seen wandering through the -unbowered 
ways of Lafayette square, which he so well remembers as 
the Burns' orchard. Here he never fails to gaze upon 
the bronze equestrian statue of his friend. Others may 
laugh at the pivoted horse, but " old Frank Blair " pro- 
nounces the statue to be the best likeness of Jackson now 
extant. 

With the exception of the Burns' house, the oldest 
houses in the city are found on Capitol Hill. Here are 
houses whose antiquity alone make them remarkable 
amid the houses of America. For example, here is the old 
Duddington house, built by Daniel Carroll, who you may 
remember was so angry with Major L'Enfant for tearing 
down his first abode, in the way of a beloved street. The 



OLD HOUSES OF THE CAPITAL. 575 

present house, built at that time, stands jus in front of 
the old site. Going south-east from the Capitol, the tall 
forest trees of Duddington are soon visible. So com- 
pletely do they screen the house, nothing is seen of it 
until the visitor comes to the large entrance gate, directly 
in front of the dwelling. It is a double house, built of 
red brick, with wings stretching out on either side. The 
grounds are beautiful in their very wildness, presenting 
all the attributes of a primitive forest. Outside is a 
spring with an ancient covering of brick. " This spring 
was once a well-known resort, on the Duddington farm, 
for the school-boys of the neighborhood, one of whom, an 
aged man now, told me how pleasantly he used to pass 
his noon recess there." 

Nearly all the buildings in this part of the city can lay. 
claim to antiquity. Many of them were built by Thomas 
Low, of brick brought from England. Thomas Low is an 
historic name in Washington. " The brother of Lord 
Ellenborough, he belonged to one of the most distin- 
guished families in England. He amassed a large fortune 
in India, at the time that Warren Hastings was Governor- 
General. He was a friend of Hastings, and warmly de- 
fended him. Low brought with him to this country five 
hundred thousand dollars in gold. Soon after his arrival 
he became acquainted with General Washington, who in- 
duced him to invest largely in the wilderness which was 
to be transformed into the capital of the nation. The 
investment was not profitable to Mr. Lf>w. The high 
price set upon property caused the city to go up far in 
the rear of his many new buildings. He married Miss 
Custis, the granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, and sister 
of George W. Parke Custis. His matrimonial venture 



576 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

was not more satisfactory than his landed one. He 
parted from his wife, and at his death his five hundred 
thousand dollars had dwindled down to one hundred 
thousand. Mr. Low was so absent-minded, it is said he 
would forget his name when inquiring for letters at the 
post-office, and once locked his wife in a room, and not 
knowing what he had done, half a day passed before she 
obtained her liberty. 

There is a row of two-story brick dwellings near Dud- 
dington which were built by Mr. Low, in one of which 
he lived. These houses bear the name of the " Ten Build- 
ings." During Mr. Low's residence there, Louis Phillippe, 
then an exile, was his guest. In one of these the first 
copy of' the National Intelligencer was printed, October 
31, 1800. Another row of houses on New Jersey avenue, 
one block south of the Capitol, was also built by Thomas 
Low. Originally they were fashionable boarding-houses, 
and such men as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Dallas and 
Louis Phillippe were entertained beneath their roof. They 
are now occupied by the Coast Survey. In this house 
the bill was drawn up and prepared for presentation to 
Congress, authorizing the establishment of a United States 
Bank. A house a little nearer to the Capitol, long occu- 
pied by John W . Forney, was built for the Bank of 
"Washington, but never occupied for that purpose. In- 
stead, the United States Supreme Court held its sessions 
in it for several years, and a house opposite was used as 
the Bank of Washington. 

Opposite the eastern front of the Capitol may be seen 
a block of three houses, which for modern elegance will 
bear comparison with any in Washington. Any one who 
recalls the forbidding-looking edifice which used to occupy 



REMINISCENCES OF SIXTY YEARS AGO. 577 

this site will find it difficult to identify this elegant block 
of private dwelling-houses with the Old Capitol Prison. 
Nevertheless the walls which once enclosed Wirz, Belle 
Royd, "rebels" and sinners of every phase and degree be- 
side no inconsiderable number of perfectly innocent prison- 
ers, now surround the luxurious drawing-rooms of a su- 
preme judge, a senator, and an advocate-general. This 
building which will ever remain most memorable as the Old 
Capitol Prison, was built for the temporary accommoda- 
tion of Congress in 1815. Niles* Register of November 
4, 1815 in an article entitled : — " The Capitol Rising from 
Its Ashes" thus speaks of this building: 

"The new building on Capitol Hill preparing for the ac- 
commodation of Congress, is in such a state of forwardness, 
that it is expected to be finished early in November. The spa- 
cious room for the House of Representatives has been finished 
for several weeks. The Senate-room has been plaistered for 
some time." 

Congress took possession of the new house, December 
4, 1815. The first day a communication was received 
from the citizens who voluntarily erected the building for 
the temporary accommodation of Congress. The build- 
ing cost $30,000; $5,000 of which had been expended ea& 
on objects necessary for the accommodation of Congress, 
which would be useless when they vacated the house. 
Therefore the proprietors declared they would be satis- 
fied with $5,000 in money, and a rent of $1,650 per an- 
num with cost of insurance. Niles' Register went on to 
say: 

"The spot where this large and commodious building was 
erected was a garden on the fourth of July last ; the bricks of 

37 



578 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

which it is built were clay, and the timber used in its construc- 
tion was growing in the woods on that day." 

The building thus expeditiously erected, was used as the 
Capitol for several years. In front of this building, James 
Monroe was inaugurated with great brilliancy, March 4, 
1817. In the winter of 1833-4, Luigi Persico occupied a 
room in this house as a studio. There in plaster stood 
the group, which now in marble occupies the south block 
in front of the main entrance to the Rotunda known 
as "Columbus and the Indian." Says the Hon. B. B. 
French : 

"How well I remember the artistic enthusiasm with which he 
described to me his conception of Columbus holding up, with 
his right hand, the new world which he had discovered ! 

There he stands, in marble, to-day, with that same "new 
world," in the form of a huge nine-pin ball, or bomb-shell, eleva- 
ted in his right hand, to the vast apparent admiration or fear of 
the crouching squaw at his side ! What the squaw. is there for, 
or what she is doing, has never yet been satisfactorily decided!" 

The next mutation of this historic house was into the 
eminently Washingtonian one of a fashionable boarding- 
house. It was first kept by a Mrs. Lindenberger, after- 
wards by a Mr. Henry Hill, and was always a favorite abode 
of Southern Members of Congress. John C. Calhoun, 
while a Senator from South Carolina, died in this house. 
It was at one time occupied by the famous Ann Royal, 
who with her factotum Sally Brass used it as the publish- 
ing house of her feared and famous publications "The 
Huntress" and "Paul Pry." 

Mrs. Royal inaugurated black-mailing journalism at an 
early day. She was the widow of a Revolutionary ofli- 



BLACK-MAILING AS A BUSINESS. 579 

cer, who, reduced to the necessity of earning her living, 



chose a very nf$Meious way of doing it. She kept what 
she callexl the Black Book, in which she recorded descrip- 
tions of the persons and characters of conspicuous resi- 
dents of the city. She canvassed the city for subscribers 
to her publications, and whoever refused was threatened 
with a place in the Black Book. So fearfully and effec- 
tually was this threat carried out, but few had the temer- 
ity to refuse her requests. If such a daring mortal was 
found, the breakfast-tables of Washington w r ere, the next 
morning, regaled with a portrayal whose impudence and 
audacity was only equalled by' its shrewdness and sharp- 
ness. All who gave her money were sure of adulation, 
while those who refused it were equally sure of being 
defamed, without regard to truth. 

She was feared by all mankind, from the highest func- 
tionary in the Government to the remotest clerk in the 
departments. " Few refused to comply with her de- 
mands, and clerks, who saw her approach, would not 
disdain to seek a friendly hiding-place." I believe she 
printed her papers with her own hands, and they were 
afterwards peddled about the town by her female man, 
Sally Brass. 

During the War of the Rebellion this building per- 
fectly swarmed with prisoners. Not only soldiers from 
the Rebel army, and undoubted culprits, but also hun- 
dreds of citizens, arrested on the faintest suspicion, were 
incarcerated within its walls. Any one suspected of 
having given comfort to the enemy, of having interfered 
with military discipline, or of having defrauded the Gov- 
ernment in the remotest way, was hurried off to the Old 
Capitol Prison. It was a small American Bastile, and it 



580 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

is well, perhaps, that its walls cannot tell all or aught 
of the oppression and outrage which transpired within 
them. In its yard stood the just gallows whereon Wirz 
was hung for the tortures which he inflicted on Union 
prisoners at Andersonville. Others were also executed 
here during the war. 

Soon after the close of the war, Mr. George T. Brown, 
then Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, bought the property 
and proceeded to transmute the Old Capitol Prison into 
the three elegant mansions which now occupy its ground. 

With this famous house must close my chapter on the 
Historic Homes and Haunts of Washington. To write 
minutely of them all would require a volume. Full de- 
tail is here impossible, but no one of the most famous 
has been omitted. 



CHAPTER XLTX. 

MOUNT VERNON — MEMORIAL DAY — ARLINGTON. 

The Tomb of Washington — The Pilgrims Who Visit it — Where George and 
Martha Washington Rest — The American Mecca — The Thought of 
Other Graves — The Defenders of the Republic — Eating Boiled Eggs — A 
Butterfly Visit — The Old Mansion-House — Patriarchal Dogs — Remem- 
bering a Feast — The Room in which Washington Died — The Great 
Key of the Bastile — The Gift "of Lafayette — The Harpsichord of Elea- 
nor Custis — The Belle of Mount Vernon — Moralizing — Inside the Man- 
sion — Uncle Tom's Bouquets — Beautiful Scenery — Memorial Day at 
Arlington — The Soldiers' Orphans — The Grave of Forty Soldiers — 
The Sacrifice of a Widow's Son — The Children's Offering — The Record 
of the Brave — A National Prayer for the Dead. 



"W 



TE have newer and dearer shrines, even, than the 
tomb of Washington • yet, in these soft, summer 
mornings, many pilgrims turn their faces toward Mount 
Vernon. 

Every morning a large company, including the young 
and the old, the refined and the vulgar, land at the little 
wharf below the home of Washington. Fathers and 
mothers coma with their children and their lunch-baskets. 
Pretty girls come with venerable duennas, and young 
men come to look at them in spite of their keepers. 
Lovers come and go, maundering along the lanes, as 
lovers will. Relic-hunters come to break off twigs and 
pilfer pansies ; newspaper people come, agog for an item ; 
and, for the climax, we will believe that a few come 
solely to do reverence at the tomb of the Father of 
their country. 



582 TEN YEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

Passing up a wooded lane that winds over the hill, we 
reached the famed sarcophagus, which engravings have 
made familiar to many eyes that have never beheld it. 
Here, on their marble couch, amid the grassy slopes and 
tutelary trees of their ancient domain, rest the bodies of 
George and Martha Washington. Full of years and full 
of honors they laid down, and their tomb has been the 
Mecca of this continent. It never can be other than it 
is. Who would rob it of one hallowed memory ? Yet, 
as I looked at its sculptured marble, I thought of many 
and many a nameless grave that I had seen by the road- 
side, and on the scathed fields of Virginia, parched by 
summer's sun, covered by winter's snow, unturfed, un- 
cared-for — the grave of the volunteer. Dear to me as 
this sepulchre of the great, is the grave of the lowliest 
soldier who perished for his country. 

The nation will reverence always the grave of Wash- 
ington. But to this generation, and to the generations 
which shall come after, are committed many graves 
which cannot be held less dear. Let every city and 
every village in the land gather, as most precious .jewels? 
the names of its dead who died for liberty. Set them in 
enduring marble ; blazon them in the public places ; let 
them greet the traveller on silent hill-tops, and in the 
peaceful vales; the names of our heroes, that we, our 
children, our children's children, to remotest time, may 
never forget the defenders of the republic, what they 
suffered and what they gained. 

We ate boiled eggs and other good things within sight 
of the tomb of the Father of our Country — a very neces- 
sary proceeding before essaying to climb the hill. While 
we were eating, a bright blue butterfly came and paid 



THE ROOM IN WHICH WASHINGTON DIED. 583 

us a visit. It looked just as if one of the myrtles had 
danced up from the bank before us, and was palpitating 
in the sunshiny air. Miss Butterfly was the loveliest 
"blue" I ever saw. 

From the tomb to the old mansion house is a pleasant 
walk over upland lawns and under sheltering trees. A 
few patriarchal dogs came forth to meet us, and that was 
all the welcome we received. Their tails were very limp, 
their ears very droopy, their legs very shaky, but they 
did their best to seem glad to see us, and that was more 
than anybody else did. One emaciated quadruped, I am 
sure, will remember to his dying hour the luncheon of 
beef and eggs of which he partook so peacefully yester- 
day, under an old tree within sight of Washington's din- 
ing-room. 

I am thankful that Congress appropriated thousands 
of dollars to repair the Mount Vernon mansion. A man- 
sion in its day, its rooms can bear no comparison with 
those of modern houses which make no pretensions. 
The dining-hall is the only one that can claim anything 
like stateliness or elegance of proportion. The parlors 
are the merest boxes, each containing one high window. 
The chamber in which Washington died commands an 
exquisite view, through the vistas of the grounds, down 
the Potomac. But, oh ! what a cell, compared with the 
spacious apartments inhabited by the great generals of 
our own day. Mrs. Washington never occupied this room 
after the death of her husband. It was closed, and all 
in it kept sacred to his memory. She removed to the 
chamber above, and occupied it till her death. We went 
up. It is a mere garret. One little attic-window gives 
a meagre glimpse of the lovely landscape below. But in 



584 TEN" YEARS IK WASHINGTON. 

its best estate the room must have been very contracted, 
dreary, and without a convenience. No modern "Bridget" 
would be content to occupy for a week such a room as 
this in which Martha Washington lived and died. 

The home of Washington, now the home of the nation, 
at last is open, kindly and genial. Here, in the hall, in 
its glass case, hangs the great key of the Bastile, pre- 
sented to Washington by Lafayette, at the destruction of 
that prison in 1789. 

Here what an opportunity to stand and gaze and mor- 
alize over the history of the brave men and beautiful 
women whose faces it shut into darkness ! So thick 
gather the celebrated names, I must not mention one. 

Here, in the grand dining-room, stands the quaint 
old harpsichord which General Washington presented as 
a wedding gift to his adopted daughter, the beautif 
Eleanor Custis. It was made in Cheapside, Hay m ark t 
London, and old ocean tossed it over to delight the hea 
of the belle of Mount Vernon. Here what another fii 
opportunity to "reflect" over the broken and rusty keys 
that once thrilled to the touch of beauty, and stirred 
with melody in the presence of the great, and made the 
old halls ring with the music of festivals ! Only my re- 
flections, like many other people's, have all come to me 
afterward, sitting here in my chair, thinking of that old 
harpsichord. When I looked at it, I doubt if I had a re- 
flection at all. Staring at relics in the midst of a jostling 
crowd is not particularly conducive to reflection — at 
least not to emotion. Even the bedstead on which 
Washington died seems to lose half its sacredness being 
handled and commented on by a careless crowd. 

In the dining-room, we see the famous marble mantel, 



MOUNT VEKNON. 585 

carved. in Italy, and presented to General Washington by 
Samuel Vaugh. Its proportions are not grand, but its 
carving is exquisite, and it still retains its whiteness and 
polish. 

The dining-room is a noble apartment of lofty propor- 
tions, extending through the depth of the house, its 
windows on front, back and sides overlooking the love- 
liest portion of the grounds. It is a sunshiny room, fit 
for family cheer. And (reflection third) what illustrious 
men and famous women have broken bread and tasted 
wine within its carved and mouldy walls in the days that 
are no more ! 

The east and west parlors, leading from the dining- 
oom, are meagre, high-windowed rooms. Indeed, the 
whole house of the Father of his Country, though, 
doubtless, a princely mansion in its day, reminds a deni- 
zen of the present generation of the growth of archi- 
tecture, and of modern convenience and elegance, quite 
as much as of anything else. Out on the veranda, where 
a venerable Uncle Tom drives a thrifty trade in the bou- 
quet line, we find the real beauty of Mount Vernon — 
its prospect. Here, looking out upon terraced lawns and 
forest trees, and down the gentlest of slopes to the wide 
Potomac, flecked with milky sails, steamboats plying its 
waves, and pleasure-barques drifting and dozing with the 
spring-time gales, we see one of the softest and fairest 
of landscapes. A gentle sky, the blue air goldened with 
daffodils and fragrant with hyacinths, pleasant friends by 
my side. Thus I think of Mount Vernon. 

Last Saturday was Memorial Day. With banners and 
bands, music and speech under the softest of May skies, 
and in its serenest airs tens of thousands of our soldiers' 



586 TEN TEARS IN WASHINGTON. 

graves were decorated with flowers. Most lovely was 
Arlington that day ! No words could have been more 
eloquently fitting than those which were spoken ; no 
music tenderer, nor fuller of precious memories, nor 
sweeter with suggestions of Heaven, than that sung 
under those patriarchal trees by fifty orphan children. 
And no sight could have been more touching than when 
these soldiers' orphans laid their flower-wreaths down 
upon ten thousand soldiers' graves. Yet the magnetism 
of the multitude was there. The tide followed the ban- 
ners and the bands, the blooming maidens, the eloquent 
speech. 

Miles out Seventh street, beyond Fort Stevens, there 
is a little cemetery where forty soldiers lie alone, who 
fell in defence of Washington. One of these was a poor 
widow's son. She had three ; and this was the last that 
she gave to her country. She, a poor widow, living far 
in northern Vermont, has never even seen the graves of 
her three soldier sons, whom she gave up, one by one, as 
they came to man's estate ; and who went forth from her 
love to return to it living no more. 

To this little grave-yard on Seventh street one woman 
v/ent alone with her children, carrying forty wreaths of 
May's loveliest flowers, and laid one on every grave. 
Forty mother's sons slept under the green turf; and one 
mother, in her large love, remembered and consecrated 
them all. She chose these because, with more than thirty 
thousand others in the larger cemeteries to be decorated, 
she feared the forty, in their isolation, might be forgotten. 
No others followed her ; and this mother, alone with her 
children, scattering flowers in the silence of love upon 
those unremembered graves, some way wears a halo 
which does not shine about the multitude. 



LBJa15 



A NATIONAL PKAYEE FOE THE DEAD. 587 

We look on Arlington through softest airs. How beau- 
tiful it is ! how sad it is ! how holy ! Again the tender 
spring grasses have crept over its sixteen thousand graves. 
The innocents, the violets of the woods, are blooming over 
the heads of our brave. In the rear of the house a gran- 
ite obelisk has been raised to the two thousand who sleep 
in one grave. Four cannon point from its summit, and 
on its face it bears this inscription : — 

" Beneath this stone repose the bones of two thousand one 
hundred and eleven unknown soldiers, gathered after the war 
from the fields of Bull Run, and the route to the Rappahannock. 
Their bodios could not be identified, but their names and deaths 
are recorded in the archives of their country, and its grateful 
citizens honor them as their noble army of martyrs. May they 

rest in peace." 

»^r [Low* 

The rooms and conservatories of the house are filled 
with luxurious plants, soon to be set out on the graves of 
this cemetery. Beauty and silence reign through this 
domain of the dead. There is a hush in the air, and a 
hush in the heart, as you walk through it, reading its 
names, pausing by the graves of its " unknown," thinking 
of the past. Far as the sight reaches, stretch the long 
columns of immortal dead. The beauty of their sleeping- 
place, the reverent care covering it everywhere, tells how 
dear to the Nation's heart is the dust of its heroes, how 
sacred the spot where they lie. In this let us not forget 
the still higher love which we owe them ; let- us attest it 
by a deeper devotion to the principles for which they 
died. 



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